


Two Pink Lines

by Fidget



Category: Gackt (Musician) - Fandom, Hyde (Musician) - Fandom
Genre: Humor, M/M, Mpreg, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-23
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:17:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fidget/pseuds/Fidget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hyde is experiencing a singular problem, and no one seems to grasp the severity of it...possibly not even him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Vague & Bodily Sense of Wrongness

**Author's Note:**

> This fic combines three of my very favourite silly things:
> 
> a) airheaded Gackt  
> b) hyperboles  
> c) Mpreg
> 
> Yeah, you read that last one right. I'll tell you right now, this is shaping up to be a very offensive sort of fic, what with the obvious RPS and Mpreg, and the satire in it. You've been warned. However, if you like silly things, here it is.
> 
> Oh, and don't worry, it's not one of those "serious" Mpreg fics (that's an oxymoron, as far as I can tell)
> 
> **Please note that this is a story I started writing in 2005 which has (shamefully) continued long into my adult life. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyde is experiencing a singular problem, and no one seems to grasp the severity of it...possibly not even him.

Hyde did not feel well.

It wasn't the sort of thing that one could put his finger on. Merely a vague and bodily sense of wrongness. At first, he tried a cigarette, but this did not do more than cast a haze over the discomfort. He tried stretching, but to no avail. He drank a coffee, a vodka, and (at Megumi's prompting) a fruit smoothie, but found only that his stomach now felt rather full and sloshy in addition to wrong.

Before Megumi went out, she insisted he call the doctor. Hyde promised he would, swore on his mother's grave that he would, and offered that if he did not, she could burn his record collection. Satisfied, Megumi went on her way.

Hyde locked himself in the bathroom with the full arsenal of the medicine cabinet and that area defined as Under The Sink. After all, his mother wasn't dead yet, and if Megumi hadn't followed up on burning his albums by this point, she was never going to.

He tried everything the bathroom had to offer. He smeared himself in all manner of ointments, swallowed syrup upon pill, and put his left leg in a knee brace. He placed the thermometer under his tongue with such vigor that the next few moments were spent stuffing cotton balls to the same location to soak up excess blood. While waiting for his temperature to be taken, he took his own blood pressure. He followed the directions on an unknown device which, after howling about the hole in his finger, he discovered to measure blood sugar.

Every measurement came up perfectly normal. Hyde was running out of options.

As he slumped down to sit dejectedly on the toilet seat, his eye was caught by the only box left undisturbed by his crazed pursuit of health. It made him blink.

The pregnancy tests seemed almost to be looking back at him. Daring him.

Well, Hyde was man enough!

It wasn't as though they could reveal anything, anyway.

And this was why Hyde spent the next three hours in the bathroom, screaming.

***

Gackt lounged in the satiny darkness of his obscenely well-furnished living room. He liked to refer to the lighting (and lack thereof) as "satiny darkness" because it brought to mind a smooth, vampyric sort of sensuality, whereas regular darkness summoned fears of tripping over rugs and table legs. It also made him think of one of his favourite blouses, black satin cut on the bias which shone red at the highlights. It made him look mysterious and sexy, just like the lighting did.

He had nothing in particular planned for the day. He had already put in his blue contacts, bleached his roots, and had his hair styled. The past few hours had been devoted, for lack of anything more productive or enjoyable, to looking casually attractive on his couch. Because this really did not take as much brain power as it looked like it did, his mind was busy delving deep inside itself to confront its own mysteries.

When the phone rang, Gackt was so very deeply immersed in his own psyche that it took five rings for him to understand the outside stimuli and eventually answer.

"Hello...?" He held the phone to his ear, voice so honestly curious and and wondrous that it was as if he had never encountered a phone before. While this was certainly not true, it was arguable that he did not know what to anticipate.

"Gackt! _Fuck!_ I need to see you. NOW."

Gackt crossed his legs and pulled a lock of hair into his line of vision to inspect how the color was holding. "Hyde, really, you should call me sooner, _before_ you get so desperately aroused-"

"No! Talk! I need to talk to you!"

"Oh." Gackt blinked. "Is Megumi in the room?" He asked suspiciously.

An exasperated sigh that was almost a growl vibrated through the phone, and Gackt calmly waited for some verbal indication of Hyde's feelings.

"Gackt." The forced calm rumbled, crackled like electricity, and the younger star reflexively patted his fashionably fluffed auburn hair to make sure it was not frizzing. "I only need to **talk** to you. It's very **important**. May I **please come over**?"

Gackt smirked and glanced at his reflection in the glass table top. "Oh, _I_ see. Yes, Hyde, you can 'come' over to 'talk' with me." He winked, but he had hung up the phone and three minutes had gone by before he realized that Hyde could not have seen this gesture. Somewhat disappointed, he wandered (with a vague, lost, but still very sexy look on his face) to his bedroom to strip and find the most provocative pose to strike on his black satin sheets.

***

Gackt frowned, faintly perturbed, and absently volumized his bangs with one jeweled finger. To look at him, you might guess that either there was an unpleasant smell in the air which he was politely trying to ignore, or he had just been asked to solve a particularly difficult math problem. However, as Gackt's house never smelled of anything but mystery, class, and roses, and as math was against his moral beliefs, it was obviously some other disturbance of his peace of mind.

"So...you're saying that...you're pregnant?"

"Yes. _Yes._ " In fact, Hyde had been saying this for the past quarter of an hour. He slumped into one of Gackt's armchairs (which could only be described as "voluptuous"). He was exhausted with the effort of forcing an idea of some magnitude through Gackt's skull.

Gackt shifted to a different position, but still managed to cover the entirety of the couch. Hyde struggled not to stare at his toned body, a difficult thing even in this very serious situation, as Gackt had not deemed it necessary to get dressed again even after it became clear that there would be no sex in his immediate future. He lounged, completely comfortable and confident, in a velvety leopard-print knot of strings which might liberally be called "a pair of underwear." He seemed pensive.

"Hacchan, I was not aware that it was possible for you to become pregnant. Is there something you've been hiding from me?" He fixed Hyde with a piercing gaze. "Are you truthfully a woman?" He demanded very seriously.

Hyde quickly cited multiple occasions upon which Gackt had seen proof of or had had personal experience with Hyde's masculinity. Gackt did not seem entirely convinced, but let the issue drop. Hyde growled and dug through his pocket for a cigarette.

As he placed the stick between his lips and flicked a little fire up on his lighter, Gackt started into an upright position with wide eyes.

" _Haido!_ " He sounded scandalized. "You can't be doing that!"

Hyde stared blankly into his lover's false blue eyes. "What?" He muttered around the cigarette.

Gackt sat up completely and crossed his arms across his chest. "Surely you know how bad it is to smoke when pregnant. It could cause a plethora of health problems with the infant anywhere from asthma to retardation."

There was, for lack of any other term, a very pregnant pause. Hyde, aware of the pun at his expense and very uncomfortable, eventually spoke.

"I do not believe you."

"If you don't believe me, for the love of god, believe the Surgeon General." Gackt nodded, somehow vindicated.

"It doesn't matter if I fucking smoke!" Hyde blew up, leaning forward to shout more directly into the other man's face. "I'm not actually _having_ this baby!"

" _Hyde!_ Are you in favour of abortion?! Don't you know that killing a defenseless fetus is _wrong_?!" Gackt was appalled. Hyde's mouth was open in disbelief.

" _This_ is wrong! This is _wrong_!" Hyde threw his cigarette wildly, not because he did not intend to smoke, but because it was already in his hand. It landed in Gackt's hair, where it surely would have burst into full combustion due to the quantity of flammable hair products located there had Gackt not been trained for years to prevent exactly this.

"Hyde, you are behaving like a menopausal woman!" He exclaimed, stubbing the retrieved cigarette out in an ashtray decorated in carved skulls. This was, obviously, the wrong thing to say.

"I think I have a right to be angry! I'm a fucking _man! I'm a man!_ "

"Yes, you are." Gackt conceded.

"And I'm fucking pregnant! This can't happen!"

"Clearly, it can." Gackt was all logic tonight.

"Shut up!" Hyde kicked Gackt in one straight, tanned shin, and Gackt whined in protest. "This is your fault!" The shorter man surmised quickly. "You have mutant sperm!"

Gackt was taken aback, and sat up very straight. "I beg your pardon?"

Hyde nodded fervently. "I always knew there was something weird about you. I thought it was your unnatural, ethereal beauty, but clearly it's your unnatural, asexual sperm!" He moaned with the tragic realization that this could have been prevented. "I always told you I wanted to be _seme_!"

Gackt would normally have made a sympathetic noise and given Hyde head to try to cheer him up, but he was still feeling too injured by the insult to his reproductive system. He had, in fact, stopped listening entirely, and Hyde watched silently as he coddled his velvet-wrapped package and whispered to it that "he didn't mean it, he was only angry and hormonal."

Hyde had a thought that this was not the sort of role model a child should have. He began to pray, constantly, desperately, silently, for a miscarriage.

***

Unfortunately, Hyde had had far too many of his silent prayers answered in his life time, and he did not have enough good luck/karma left to grant him a supernatural abortion. Disbelief therefor took over, and Hyde lived for several months with his proverbial fingers shoved brain-damagingly deep into his proverbial ears. He shoved all of his appointments and appearances back as far as those concerned would let him, and waited for this problem to sort itself out and disappear, hopefully taking less than nine and a half months to do so.

After all, he reasoned, it was not as if he could _really_ be pregnant. That was ridiculous. He wasn't really going to have a baby at the end of it. This was just God's way of telling him to cut the homosexual crap. 'Look, fanservice is one thing,' said God, 'and I'm not about to tell you to stop flirting with him in front of the masses. You just keep wearing that crucifix around your neck, and we'll be fine. But that doesn't mean you can go giving in to all your carnal urges. Try to keep your pants buttoned, or I'll have to hit you with something unnatural.'

Hyde took comfort in the knowledge that this was just a warning. He promised he'd never sleep with Gackt again, even if Gackt did that thing where he bent backwards over the couch.

However, as the months went by, and Hyde perceived his abdominal area to be gaining inches, he began to feel a sort of mortal panic set in. The idea occurred to him that perhaps this was the real thing after all. Perhaps he had already received his warnings, like when Gackt had accidentally super-glued his underwear to the side of Hyde's face, or when, searching for his pants, he had become lost in Gackt's walk-in closet for thirteen hours. He also began to realize that delaying his appointments before had been a very, very bad move. Had he performed those duties before, when he was _not_ "showing," he would have been free to take a sudden and unexplained leave now that he _was_. As things were, dates of lives and television appearances and album recordings were looming just over the horizon, and Hyde was having to become a fan of peasant blouses.

However bad his physical appearance might have been to the media, it was nothing compared to the anxiety of being at home. Megumi was quite familiar with Hyde's size, shape and consistency, and she had been giving his belly glances of late, a look in her eye that seemed much too knowing. Every time she gave him a hug that landed her arms around his waist, Hyde thought he was having a heart attack. Not only that, but Hyde (quite unbeknownst to himself) was suffering from all the typicalities of pregnancy, including mood swings that, had they had a steel ball on the end, could have demolished a bank vault.

_"Hideto, dear, would you please get the phone for me? I'm still drying off from the shower." Megumi called from the bathroom._

_Hyde, face contorted with rage, threw the phone across the hall and against the bathroom door. He followed this attack by bursting into tears. Megumi spent the next half of an hour calming him with quiet words and the better portion of a carton of ice cream._

Megumi, drawing off of years of marriage, began to notice these subtle changes in her husband, and set about trying to discover what could have brought about the shift.

Her answer arrived a few weeks later, roughly three and a half months after Hyde's initial, shocking discovery. In a way, it arrived in the form of fellow music star and family friend Gackt, dropping by their house unannounced. Megumi opened the door in response to the ring of the doorbell, and Gackt flashed her a winning smile.

"Good afternoon, Megumi-san. I trust you are doing well on a beautiful day such as this?"

"Yes, yes, Gackt, I'm doing just fine. And you?"

"I confess I've noticed some irritation to my peace of mind, a sort of disturbance to the usual ebb and flow of my thoughts, but unfortunately I am not disposed to speak of the cause as of yet." Gackt's countenance fell, as though he had been reminded of something deeply depressing. Megumi, having known Gackt for a few years (ever since Hyde began spending time with him for their movie), did not let this sort of speech throw her off.

"Won't you come inside, Gackt?" She stepped aside to let him through the door, and Gackt visibly shook himself out of some reverie.

"Thank you. I do hope I am not intruding. I apologize for coming over unannounced, only I wanted to speak with Hyde." Gackt was already searching the immediate area for his friend. Megumi smiled and pointed towards the living room.

"He's right in there. Would you like something to drink?"

"No, thank you. I do not intend to trouble you long." Gackt smiled over his shoulder at her as he made his way into the living room.

As was usual when she spent any amount of time conversing with Gackt, Megumi had to stop herself from laughing aloud. He certainly was pretty, that one, but maybe a track short of a full album. She busied herself making a snack for their son in the kitchen, and thought with amusement, Maybe a few tracks.

A few minutes later, Megumi exited the kitchen with the purpose of waking the child from her nap and giving her the snack. As she passed the entrance to the living room, she peeked in to see how Hyde and Gackt were doing, and was intrigued by the serious atmosphere.

Hyde was seated on the couch, as he had been when she left him, with a harried look on his face. He looked so anxious and lost that she would have been compelled to go comfort him, but she was distracted by Gackt, who was kneeling on the floor between Hyde's legs with his head pressed tight against his abdomen. For one moment her heart skipped a beat with disbelief, wondering if she could really be seeing what she was seeing, but a moment later it was apparent she was not. Gackt had his ear pressed against Hyde's stomach, and he looked up into Hyde's face and murmured something in a wondrous tone that Megumi could not catch. This was followed by Hyde's louder, more snappish response of "Well, of course you can't hear it! What, do you expect it to be talking to you?!"

This was so peculiar that Megumi knew at once she had to corner Gackt and coax him to spill.

She lingered in the hallway, waiting to hear one of them rise, and at last heard Gackt's polite declaration that he had to powder his nose. She leapt quickly into the bathroom and stationed herself behind the door. As Gackt walked in and shut the door behind himself, he was confronted with Megumi's determined face. He gasped, blue eyes going wide, then his eyebrows contracted with apparent effort. There were a few moments of pause.

"Forgive me, Megumi-san," He said at last, having apparently come to some sort of conclusion. "I did not know you were already here. In fact, I did not even notice the door being closed as I walked in-"

"Gackt, I need you to tell me something." Megumi interrupted. Gackt looked up in surprise. "Don't lie to me, all right? Because I _will_ be able to tell."

Gackt looked unmistakably frightened. He seemed ready to bolt. Megumi drew herself up.

"Gackt, are you and Hyde...?" She trailed off, unable to be so crass as to state what she feared, especially considering the consequences should she be wrong.

The rock star waited for her to finish her sentence, watching her face with interest, if some fear.

Megumi decided to try a different approach.

"What is Hyde to you?"

"What is he?"

"Yes. A friend?"

"Oh, of course he is a friend. I would say that Hyde is my _best_ friend. Except for perhaps You-kun, who might be my _very_ best friend, but this is only because I have known You-kun for some time, whereas Hyde I have only become intimately acquainted with in the past few years...With time, though, I am sure that-"

"Gackt," Megumi interrupted this trail of thought into the unknown expanses. "How intimately acquainted are you with Hyde?"

This question cut the string of candy-word-floss being woven from Gackt's seemingly endless supply of hot air and fluff. He paused, looking like a small boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or a full-grown man caught with his hand down another man's pants, as the case may be. While this look answered Megumi's question, she waited for his response.

"How intimate? How do you mean?" He asked cautiously. Fairly sure of herself, Megumi said bluntly,

"I mean, do you sleep together?"

Gackt gave it some thought. "Yes," he answered at last. "As a matter of fact, rather frequently." He paused and thought again, then looked at Megumi in shock. "How did you know? Did Hyde tell you?"

Megumi sighed. "Yes. He told me all about it. He knows he doesn't have to be afraid to tell me things. He knows I'll understand him if he only talks to me... Which is why I just can't understand this..."

"Oh, good." Gackt said with some relief. "I was rather afraid you had tricked me into giving a secret away." He laughed, a light, charming sound that probably caused several of his fans located in various points around the globe to inexplicably orgasm simultaneously. "I'm sure Hyde would have been very upset if I did something so stupid. He would say, 'Gackt, you fucking idiot!'" His voice became a rather uncanny impression of Hyde's angry shout. "'Did you think you could just go telling everybody?! What part of "secret" was difficult for you to understand?!' You know?" His face became rather concerned, and he looked down at the floor uncomfortably. "I don't think Hyde believes me to be very intelligent. I never say anything, but he truly upsets me when he says such hurtful things..."

He realized that Megumi had left the bathroom, and so closed the door with a sigh.

***

Hyde slouched against the sofa cushions, scowling slightly. Gackt had shown up for the sole purpose of trying to hear the baby's heartbeat. The baby which, damnit, he was _not going to have_. And in front of Megumi and everything...honestly, she could have walked in at any moment, and what the hell would that have looked like...?

"Hideto?"

He jerked and looked up to see the very woman he had been pondering enter the room, a very serious look on her face that made him want to shrink into the cushions and disappear. However, as attempting to do so would only have landed him stuck in the couch and very much an object of suspicion, he merely raised his eyebrows in reply.

Megumi sat down next to him on the couch. "Hideto, I want you to be very honest with me."

Hyde barely managed to suppress a groan.

"Are you having an affair with Gackt?"

The shock was so immense that Hyde actually blacked out for three and a half seconds. He awoke with a faint idea that he had been asleep a long time, and dreaming of horrible things, but when he realized he was still on the sofa, and Megumi was looking into his eyes seriously, this hope was dashed. Hyde shifted uncomfortably. Since the cushions were very soft, this was an absolute giveaway.

"Er..."

"If it helps, I already know the answer." Megumi said, and Hyde felt his heart splatter ungracefully into the pit of his stomach. He hoped vaguely that it had given the baby a hard knock to the head on its way down.

He considered his options, and went with a definite but unsure "Yes." The moment the word was out of his mouth, the thought struck him that Megumi could have been bluffing. He wondered if it was possible to kick his own ass out his nostrils, and was just on the point of getting up and trying when Megumi broke into a sad smile. His hands shot to cover his crotch, as this sort of unexpected behavior could only be leading to a massive ass-kicking that he would not have to supply himself.

"You idiot!" She said, almost laughing. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Hyde blinked. "Why didn't I tell you...I was having an affair?" He asked.

Megumi nodded.

"With another _man_?" Hyde clarified.

Megumi waited expectantly for his answer, and Hyde shrugged, running a hand through his hair.

"Well, gee, darling, I really expected you to be _upset_ about it, and stuff." He said. Megumi rolled her eyes.

"You thought I would be unhappy that my beautiful rock-star husband is having sex with his beautiful rock-star friend?" She smacked the back of his head with her open palm. "Where do men get such silly ideas?"

Hyde could barely believe his good luck. It seemed too good to last, and he found himself searching for a way to bring this illusion down faster. "There's more, too. You're not going to believe it."

Megumi glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. "More? Hide-chan, how many men _are_ you sleeping with?"

"No! One! There's something else!"

"Well, I'm in the mood for surprises. What is it?"

Hyde could barely get the words past his lips. "I'm pregnant." He stated, figuring it would be best to leave any explanation he could offer until after.

Megumi blinked. She frowned. She looked thoughtful. Hyde saw her eyes dart more than once to his stomach, and he felt unbelievably self-conscious.

Then, at last, Megumi's face broke into a giant smile. "Oh, Hideto, why didn't you _say_ something _before?!_ "

Hyde thought he might pass out again. "What?!

Megumi enveloped him in a tight hug. "You're obviously a few months into it, and you never _once_ asked for my help! I'm the one who's been through this before, remember? Oh, we have so much to do before it gets here!"

"Gets here?!" Demanded Hyde, whose brain was too scrambled to form any real questions, to explain what was wrong with a statement, or to do anything besides repeat the particularly offensive part of what Megumi had just said.

Megumi turned to look at Hyde. "Am I to assume Gackt is the father?" She asked.

"Father?!" Hyde shouted. He was very displeased with how this made him 'the mother,' although he could not say so for reasons previously explained. Megumi was not listening to her husband's hormonal outbursts.

"I can't believe you were hiding this...What did you think, that it was just going to go away?"

Hyde remained silent, although his scowl deepened considerably. Megumi got up and leave Hyde a smoldering, scrambled pile of confusion. She was practically skipping when she met Gackt in the hallway. She pulled him into a tight hug, pinning his arms to his sides.

"Congratulations!" She said, smiling widely. Gackt smiled back, turning his head away shyly.

"Thank you," he said, face the very picture of modesty. "I didn't expect to hear it from you."

"Of course you'll hear it from me! You should be so proud!"

"I am. But of course, I could never have done it without you. And without Hyde, of course." Gackt looked up, gratitude and pride shining on his face.

Megumi smirked mischievously. "Of course not without Hyde." She agreed. "You goof. Go on out and sit down. I'll come out and make us some drinks to celebrate. Oop, but not Hyde, of course."

"Of course." Gackt took a slight bow, and walked away to the living room.

As he entered the living room, Hyde noted that Gackt looked confused. While this in itself was not so peculiar, the confusion had reached an intensity that was impossible to ignore. "Something wrong?" He queried.

Gackt looked up, and slid gracefully over to the couch to sit down beside the shorter man. "Hyde, your wife just accosted me with the most peculiar expressions of congratulations for which I can find no worthy cause. Do you suppose she is ill? Or perhaps abusing some substance?"

Hyde wondered if there was any alcohol in the house.


	2. A Trip to the Doctor's Office Reveals More Inexplicable Facts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyde is hooked into a visit to the local doctor, and discovers that his masculinity is in more danger than he expected.

Having Megumi in on the secret turned out to be the very best thing Hyde had done in a very long while. Not only did she possess invaluable "second time around" tips and forewarnings, she was also defensive of her husband as only a wife could be. She stomped various media authorities into their respective places over the phone, day in and day out, and Hyde always felt compelled to praise these attacks with an awed "I love you."

Megumi could not stopper the influx of personal friends, though. This was lead by a frustrated Tetsu, who covered his anxiety over the lack of work with ostentatious concern for his friend's health. Hyde requested, after the bassist's fourth visit in one week, that he leave immediately to perform fellatio. Tetsu was vocally injured by this comment for several minutes until Hyde initiated a long-range attack by pillows. Tetsu skipped off with the cheery declaration that he would return when Hyde was not so tired and cranky.

Meanwhile, Hyde's girth was getting more and more impressive. As physical appearance was a very large part of his career, and therefore life, Hyde was distressed by his acquiring what could easily be mistaken at this point for a beer belly. He voiced this concern to Gackt. The younger pop star pulled his lover into a tight embrace.

"Don't worry, Hyde. I will always love and adore you for who you are on the inside, no matter how repulsively fat or wrinkled you may be on the outside."

Hyde was alarmed by how wrinkles had suddenly become part of what he should be concerned over.

A month and a half later, (some four and a half months after Hyde's discovery, for those who are counting) Megumi came to Hyde with a very disturbing suggestion. He was lying on their bed, considering absently how unbearably uncomfortable it had become to sleep on his stomach, when his wife took a seat beside him on the mattress.

"Hideto?" She began softly, and Hyde could tell by the tone of her voice that she was about to broach an uncomfortable subject. He grunted by way of reply. Megumi reached over to pet one of his thighs soothingly, and Hyde had the sudden, urgent thought that it had been months since he last had sex.

"Dear, I know you really want to keep this whole thing quiet, and of course I don't blame you. It's the right thing to do."

Months. Whole, entire months. More than one. Hyde could not remember having suffered such a long interval. How had so much time gone by without his noticing?

"But really, there's only so much that Gackt and I can do for you. Especially Gackt. You shouldn't be relying on him or on me for your health. Especially not on him."

Normally, between Megumi and Gackt, Hyde had barely a night of decent sleep. Gackt was constantly leaving messages on his cell phone suggesting they meet, and Hyde always replied to them (except once when he had mistaken a particularly tawdry message for a prank call, and had later accused Tetsu of leaving bad call-girl impressions on his phone. That had been an awkward situation to explain). Not that he was complaining, mind. But it was very odd that all requests for his "performances" had been cut short. He jerked with a horrific realization that sex with a pregnant man must be at the bottom of everyone's list.

"What I'm trying to suggest is that you go and see the doctor."

Hyde jumped, this suggestion too potent to be glossed over with thoughts of Gackt flexing backwards over the couch. "What?! Are you fucking crazy?!"

"Don't talk to me like that. It's the only thing to do. You have no idea what's going on inside you right now. None of us do!"

"I want it to stay that way!"

"But what if you're being hurt? You don't want something to go wrong, do you?"

Hyde fell back into the bed and pulled a pillow over his face. "I'd feel it if I was getting hurt." He mumbled half-heartedly. He had a feeling that this argument was all for show, anyway.

"Hide-"

"No way!"

"Look, I've already made you an appointment with Sakamoto-sensei. We already know he's trustworthy and won't ask unnecessary questions. He helped you get that bit of silk off your face, didn't he? And he never even asked how it got there."

Hyde flushed under the pillow. "It's not the same thing! That was just a piece of fabric-"

"I piece of _underwear_." Megumi said sharply. Hyde squeaked.

"...You knew?"

"Please, dear. I appreciate the effort you put into cutting most of it off first, but where else are you going to find leopard print silk? My question is still how on earth you glued it to your face."

Hyde frowned. Megumi's hand had retracted from his thigh, and he was suspicious it was crossed over her chest now. "Anyway, it's not the same. This is unnatural." He pouted.

"I'm willing to bet that whatever events stuck a string-bikini to your cheekbone weren't natural, either."

Hyde was displeased with how the conversation repeatedly returned to the underwear. He followed suit and crossed his arms over his chest petulantly. Megumi patted his stomach twice.

"Your appointment is tomorrow at three. I'll take you to it, and Gackt is coming. He deserves to hear anything the doctor has to say, even if it goes over his head."

He heard her get up and walk out of the room, but did not move.

The phone rang.

Hyde grappled for the cordless on the bedside table, and pulled it under the cushion with him. "Hello?"

"Hyde!" A delighted baritone came through the speaker. "I was just out doing a bit of shopping and would you guess what I found?"

Hyde wondered if it was his own ass. "No, Gacchan. What?"

"Well, this place here is selling those body pillows...do you know what those are?"

It was difficult to guess precisely where this conversation was going, but Hyde did not like the general direction. "Yes, I know what they are."

"They're selling the ones with prints on them, prints of characters from anime or video games, life size on the pillows so you can-"

Repulsed, Hyde interjected, "What store are you _at_?!"

"Oh, I don't know, I saw these through the windows and had to step inside. Anyway, among the prints available, you'll never guess who I found!"

"Who?" Not that Hyde really wanted to know. In fact, he was wondering if he pressed the pillow into his face now, whether or not he could pass out before Gackt answered.

" _You!_ A body pillow with _you_ on it, Hyde! Isn't that amazing? You are truly famous to have your likeness silk-screened onto full-length cushions. And very popular, too. There are only two left."

Hyde's face was beginning to ache, and he realized he had unconsciously twisted it into an expression of abject horror and disgust. He quickly relaxed it, but he had already pulled a muscle in his lip. "Please," he began quietly, "Tell me you're not buying one right now."

Gackt made a derogatory noise into his cell phone. "Of course not. I have the real thing. Why would I buy a Hyde made of cotton and down when I have a Hyde made of flesh and blood for free?"

Hyde could not fathom why, but he was relieved none the less.

"They also had one of me, and of course I chose to purchase that one."

This, naturally, brought up images that Hyde knew he would not be able to forget, and he thought optimistically that, if he managed to get through the rest of the day without strangling himself, he would have fascinating dreams that night.

***

Sakamoto-sensei sat on the stool and listened as Megumi explained the situation to the best of their collective knowledge. He had a surprisingly serious look on his face, and nodded at intervals through the tale. It made Hyde angry, since he was obviously trying to give an impression of understanding, and he obviously could not understand.

Hyde sat on the examination table, paper crinkling as he shifted uncomfortably, and focused on trying to kill everyone in the room using only his mind. Megumi was standing nearest the doctor, explaining. Gackt was alternately striking poses in the single waiting chair and wandering around the room, looking at equipment and into cabinets. He grinned and held up a cotton swab for Hyde to see, filled a brand-new syringe in the sink and gave injections to the cotton balls, and finally settled into building a log-cabin of sorts out of tongue depressors. Hyde watched this bizarre activity until he became aware that the doctor and his wife had ceased to talk, and now both were looking at him.

"Well," began Sakamoto-sensei, "It seems to me that, given our lack of knowledge, we should start with a full physical, plus an examination of the general area."

Hyde blanched, and wondered if he could make it to the window before they could catch him. Second story be damned.

"Hideto..." Megumi warned, seeing how similar Hyde's face had become to that of a frightened rabbit. Hyde squirmed, and the paper crinkled urgently.

"For the sake of the patient, I'll have to ask that you two wait outside until the examination is finished." The doctor said, and Megumi led a protesting Gackt away from his log cabin. Hyde bristled on the table, trying to look formidable. He didn't want Sakamoto to get any brilliant ideas. He wasn't letting anyone near the anatomy in question without some sort of fight.

"Well, Takarai-san," the doctor said, folding his arms and leaning against the counter. "I'm going to need you to take off your pants."

Hyde whimpered and did as he was told, wondering if the next request was going to be to bend over the examination table.

If only he had been correct.

***

After a few minutes which Megumi would have incorrectly termed "brief", she and the man sharing her husband were beckoned back into the room in which Hyde had hitherto been held prisoner. She sat down in the waiting chair in the corner, and Gackt, left with nowhere to sit, crossed his ankles and leaned against the wall with his thumbs hooked in his beltloops. As his head was turned dramatically to one side, it took him some moments to realize that Hyde was passed out on the examination table. By the time this had sunk in, Megumi was already in conversation with the doctor.

"...hasn't shown any signs of illness like this before now, or I would have brought him in sooner. Is he going to be all right?"

Sakamoto-sensei adjusted his glasses shrewdly. "He is absolutely fine. In fact, I believe he has handled the news with admirable strength."

"News?" Megumi looked troubled. Gackt's gaze left Hyde's sprawled, unconscious form to look seriously into the doctor's eyes.

"Yes. Let me explain. No doubt at some point over the past few months, you have wondered at least in passing how the child is going to be born since Takarai-san lacks a birth canal and vagina."

Gackt giggled, but no one paid him any mind.

"I know that upon hearing your story, my most urgent questions were 'where is the baby developing?' and 'how will it be born?'. If these things are happening incorrectly, after all, they could cause great damage to both your husband and the child."

Megumi was looking troubled. "I...I didn't give it much thought. I guess I thought that since he was somehow pregnant, it would work itself-"

"Hyde's pregnant?!" Gackt said in shock, standing straight and staring at Megumi with wide eyes. Megumi and the doctor tried to ignore him as he examined Hyde's prone form in confusion. Then he leaned back against the wall, looking relieved. "Oh, that's right."

"At any rate," continued Sakamoto-sensei. "It appears we have nothing to worry about in those respects. Takarai-san appears to have...developed...a perfectly useable arrangement of female reproductive organs."

Megumi's face twisted as though she had just discovered that she was eating something unpleasant. Gackt, on the other hand, was wide-eyed once more.

"Wait...he has...?"

"Not all of them, naturally. No evidence, strangely enough, of ovaries or fallopian tubes or any of the organs associated with conceiving. The new additions are all those related to carrying and birthing the baby; a uterus, a birth canal, and a vagina."

Gackt tried to stifle his giggles this time, but did a rather poor job of it. His eyes bore a sort of hunger, however, as he asked, "Are they entirely...functional?"

"Gackt!" Megumi scolded, appalled. Gackt shrank back.

Hyde chose this moment to awaken, the crinkling paper announcing his shift into consciousness. He sat up with some difficulty, stomach continually thwarting his efforts to rise in a normal fashion, and took in his surroundings with a frown. It was clear he had hoped to wake up and find the past hour (or possible five months) only a dream. He glanced from Megumi, who was giving him a sympathetic look, to the doctor, who was watching him expectantly for a reaction, to Gackt, who was eyeing him with a look Hyde had only before seen on his female fans' faces. He started to cry.

Gackt was upon him in a moment, sitting on the corner of the examination table and stroking his hair. "Oh, Hyde, don't cry. Everything's going to be all right, you'll see!" He smiled encouragingly. Hyde thrashed and kicked until the paper on the bed tore.

"It's not going to be okay! I'm a woman, _I'm a woman!_ " He screamed, beating his fists against the exposed brown vinyl.

"Hyde, I don't love you any less because of it." Gackt said softly, refraining for his own safety from offering any more comforting touches. Hyde's head shot up, giving Gackt a glare, and had the younger pop star not been wearing his blue contacts, his eyes would doubtlessly have been burnt out. With a frightened look, he stepped quickly away from the angry little man on the table.

"Next you'll be telling me I'm growing breasts!" Hyde shouted accusingly, turning his death gaze on the doctor. Sakamoto-sensei made sure his glasses were safely covering the whole of his eyes.

"I'm afraid I can't ensure you you won't." He said matter of factually. Hyde took this as an excuse to raise his fit into a full-blown hysterical tantrum. While waiting for him to tire himself out, Megumi read the newest issue of "Parent" magazine, and Gackt attempted numerous times to engage the doctor in conversation about a peculiar feeling of dizziness, disconnectedness, and other-worldliness, which Sakamoto-sensei stubbornly refused to attribute to anything but lack of sleep and dehydration.


	3. In Which Gackt Makes a Most Horrifying Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Studying French gives Gackt a horrible insight as to the cause of Hyde's problems.

Camui Gackt awoke one morning after unsettling dreams to find himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

In all truthfulness, he was still at least as human as he could ever claim to be, and it was only morning in the academic sense, being about two-thirty. From the look of horror painted across his delicate features, however (horror never "contorted" Gackt's face, only left him looking beautiful and tragic like some melodrama damsel), it was the only thing for the onlooker to conclude.

In a panic, he turned and snatched the phone from the cradle, but as he did so, he was confronted with the reflection of his own wide eyes in the dark mirror he had hung beside his bed, which he sometimes gazed into until he fell asleep at night. There was something unsettling about it. He paused to apply his contact lenses, then snatched the phone again and dialed a familiar number urgently.

"Hyde!" he shouted, voice rather wild, but still smooth and deep. "I've just realized a most terrible thing!"

 

**-One Week Earlier-**

Gackt was content.

He usually was. What was there to be discontent about when one was beautiful, talented in every way, and had thousands upon thousands of women (and a few men) mindlessly taking in everything one said and did?

Gackt had often considered that if he had wanted to become the leader of Japan, he would neither lack followers nor encounter much opposition. The world, while more difficult than his home country, would nevertheless be quick to fall. On these occasions, he would then nod his head and think that it was humble indeed of him to stick merely to writing music, writing books, writing and starring in movies, and throwing pictures of his naked body all over the television and magazines.

He had been discontent for a while when he had first met Hyde. Hyde was charming, talented, and beautiful, reminding Gackt distinctly of a tiny, flawed version of himself, like a stone statue of a god. As he had recently been forced to abandon his dream of cloning himself and having what would undoubtedly be the best sex in all of mortal history, Hyde had been a welcome distraction and an intoxicating sort of obsession. Gackt had been plagued, night and day, by the distressing fact that he and Hyde were not, at that moment, in the past, or in the perceivable future, having sex.

It was fundamentally wrong and something had to be done to right it.

He had tried what usually worked to get people to have sex with him (i.e. looking at them, being in the same room, etc.) but to no avail. Thinking that perhaps Hyde was not paying attention, he stated his intentions quite plainly to the other man's face ("Hyde, you are exactly the sort of person I could fall in love with!", "Oh, Hyde, you looked so lovely, I was going to kiss you in your sleep!", "Hyde, take off your pants and lie face-down on my bed this very instant!"), but Hyde only laughed and told him he was weird. Time in Taiwan was drawing shorter and shorter, and Gackt was running out of ideas.

Eventually, one night, after a long and productive music session concerning the theme for _Moon Child_ , Gackt had crept to the door while Hyde was in the little hotel bathroom and jammed a few hair pins into the latch. Saying his goodbyes, Hyde had been perturbed to find that the door would not open.

"I locked it," Gackt had said matter-of-factually, and when Hyde asked him what the big idea was, Gackt had quickly explained, "Hyde, I want very desperately to make love to you. I have tried time upon time to make this clear, and yet you continue to thwart my efforts. I only today remembered how once, an old bandmate was suffering the same problem with me. He locked me in the studio with him one night, you see, and though before I could have sworn I held no interest in him, by the time the morning was dawning, I had discovered a passion hidden deep inside myself. I hope to accomplish the same thing, albeit by slightly differed means."

Hyde had asked him, in no polite terms, how he thought that might work, and continued to inquire as to Gackt's mental health. 

"Love can make a man do things that seem unbalanced, Hyde." Gackt had said sagely.

"I know karate." Hyde had countered, voice rather louder and more assertive than was really necessary to be heard in the small, quiet, lowly-lit hotel room.

"Have no fear, my angel. As I said before, my method for seducing you shall differ greatly from that implemented in my own captivity. I shall not force myself upon you by any means. I do not wish to do to Armani suits for you what my captor did to mid-Victorian era petticoats for me."

Inexplicably, Hyde had not been calmed. "If you come near me, I'll knock your pretty face right out your tight, hypnotic, leather-clad ass!"

And then they had had sex.

Now that things were once again cosmically balanced, Gackt was once again content. He had only suffered a brief relapse when he had learned that Hyde was carrying their child, but once Megumi had been informed, and Hyde had begun to be more cheerful (and stopped waking Gackt in the middle of the night asking for a steak and kiwis, please), he had gone back to his usual, contented self.

Hyde had continued to be moody throughout the week after visiting the doctor, evidently feeling that his masculinity (frail to begin with, and jarred considerably by his carrying a baby) had been absolutely dashed by the newest development (specifically, the development of feminine organs). He had frequently turned to Megumi while they lay in bed and asked her, voice falsely deep, if she was ashamed to be married to a woman.

_"Hide, you're not a woman! These are strange circumstances, but I'm not ashamed of you, and you're not a woman!"_

_"Of course not," Gackt added, ever helpful, when told of the exchange later. "You have both female and male genitalia. You are a hermaphrodite. You know, I've always been fascinated with the idea of hermaphrodites. Mana and I used to have long discussions about-"_

During this time, Hyde was rather quick to throw fits.

However, his spirits gradually rose, and now he was positively happy. His cheeks were a healthy pink, his face a bit rounder than before, as with his arms and legs, and he whistled to a point that was nearly unbearable. He was held in the clutches of a possessive creative streak, and wrote song upon song that, sadly, would never be introduced to the band because of their touchy subject matter.

The band in general was a topic to be dealt with. Hyde had never known Tetsu to be in such a fuss. He waged psychological war against Hyde, implementing strategies typically used to cause prisoners of war to break and give in to questioning. He called Hyde at odd hours of the night, sometimes friendly and concerned, sometimes breathing verbal fire through the phone line. He appeared at the house at inorderable intervals, requesting or demanding to see his vocalist. Hyde was beginning to fear that Tetsu would come in through his window at night.

In the beginning, Megumi had fielded these calls, coaxing or upbraiding until Tetsu left. However, she was running out of excuses, and Tetsu was becoming immune to her methods. He had actually managed to enter the foyer last time. However, Hyde was not above using every dirty trick in the book, and he opted to skip straight to the most powerful deterrent in hopes of frightening Tetsu away forever.

Tetsu appeared again the following afternoon, knocking against the door with what sounded to be a steel bat and demanding angrily to be let in to speak to Hyde.

Hyde truly wished he could have seen the band leader's face when the door was answered politely by Gackt.

"Hello," the musical rival said, voice calm and polite despite Tetsu's double-fisted grasp on an instrument that could undeniably have permanently altered the appearance of his face, and therefore obligated him to commit ritual suicide. And people thought Gackt wasn't a brave man. "May I help you?"

Tetsu tucked his jaw back into its rightful position. "I'm looking for Hyde. He hasn't been to practice in a long time. Then again, you probably knew that."

Gackt either ignored or completely missed the accusation in the last sentence. "Indeed I did. Hyde is a dear friend of mine, and I am intimately acquainted with most of the happenings of his life. If he ever deemed it impossible to speak to me on any subject, no matter whether it was insignificantly small or of a delicate nature, I would feel as though I had failed unforgivably as a friend."

Though Tetsu had met Gackt many times through Hyde, and though he had accepted the unorthodox friendship between his vocalist and their undeniable rival, he was unaccustomed to dealing with Gackt's conversations alone. He stood still, giving Gackt a suspicious look as he tried to find a suitable reply.

"Won't you come in?" Gackt asked cordially before the shorter man had succeeded. Tetsu, feeling no doubt that at last he was getting somewhere, walked in and headed for Hyde's music room single-mindedly. However, he found himself blocked by a man who, moments before, had been behind him closing the door.

"Would you like something to drink? Though it is not my house, I have a proficient understanding of the layout and organization, and have been given privileges to help myself to what I might find in the cupboards."

"No, thank you-" Tetsu began with polite firmness, but a glass of wine appeared from apparently nowhere and was pressed into his hands.

"If you please, come and sit down in the living room. It is curiously fortunate indeed that you have stopped by while I am here, although certainly I am here very often, because, as I am telling Hyde frequently, I am an admirer of your music."

"That's nice-" Tetsu started, but Gackt, like an oil tanker approaching the dock too fast, slowly but unceasingly cut through Tetsu's attempted reply without any foreseeable stop.

"Many times as I struggle for precisely the right note in a song, I long to ask you for your professional opinion. It would be a great honor to me if you would critique a piece of music for me, Tetsu- _san_."

"Well, if you ever think of it, you can give me a ca-"

"Unfortunately, I have no piece of written music with me, but undoubtedly it would work better to actually hear it, anyway." Turning around, he reached behind the couch, and Tetsu here realized that he had somehow come to be sitting in an armchair across from one of the men he least wanted to be sitting in a armchair across from. If this was an appalling realization, it was nothing to seeing Gackt pulling an acoustic guitar from behind the sofa and settling it on to his lap.

"I've been having some difficulty with this particular piece. The chorus, I'm afraid, does not fit the mood I am trying to convey. Musically, it is lovely, but..." He tested the guitar a moment, and then immediately launched into an emotional chorus. Tetsu felt his eyebrow twitch and tried to remain professional.

Taking a moment to descend from the nirvana that singing and playing his guitar had evidently elevated him to, Gackt glanced again at Tetsu, impeccably plucked eyebrows pressing together and creating a single indentation in between which reminded Tetsu disturbingly of the soloist's buttocks. The bassist considered following a certain Greek tragedy's example of how to deal with unforgivable sexual deviations and stabbing out his eyes with Gackt's conveniently near dagger bracelet. And then perhaps doing it again. "You see what I am saying," Gackt said, distress evident in his voice. "Musically, it is precisely what it should be, but I fear that the notes, ascending as they do, give too much feeling of joy and hope, you see, while the words themselves sing of despair. What is the correct answer? To lose the musical perfection to save the mood? To risk atmospheric ambiguity for melodic excellence?"

Tetsu's own eyes were wide with disbelief, although not for any of the reasons Gackt would have assumed. "It's a dilemma." He conceded, and tried to quickly think of something to stop Gackt from speaking again. "Where's Hyde?" He asked suddenly.

"Hyde has been no help at all," Gackt said, casting a glance sadly at the floor to his right as though sharing a private, sympathetic moment with it. "Despite his undeniable _forte_ in writing music, he feels a friendly obligation to compliment me. When I show him the music I need guidance with, he merely tells me I've done a nice job, as though I have represented his likeness in macaroni noodles and glue." He sighed heavily, then looked up and gave Tetsu a bright smile. "However, as you and I are not friends in the slightest, I do not fear we shall have this problem at all."

Tetsu held off reiterating the point of his visit in order to keep his professional relations good. "Now, Gackt- _san_ , we're friends-"

Gackt looked politely but earnestly shocked. "Why, Tetsu- _san_ , you must be joking! I know very well you can barely abide by my presence!"

"I think you're overreacting..."

"Make no mistake, I am not offended by it, only aware of it! When people are opposed very strongly to something, it is as clear as day to me by the glow of their aura. You see, when I was but a small child, I had a near fatal experience in the Sea of Okinawa-"

Like many survivors of disasters, Tetsu could never remember exactly how he escaped, only that twelve minutes later, he found himself thirty feet in the air in a pine tree in the local park.

Hyde, hearing no more voices from the living room, dared to peek out of the bedroom. "Is he gone?"

Gackt stood by the open window, peering out with interest, and Hyde shuffled quickly over to make sure nothing too morbidly fascinating was going on without his notice. Gackt's face was bemused and awed.

"He left via window." The taller man explained quietly. Hyde looked at Gackt. He then looked out the window, expression confused.

"We're on the third story." He pointed out, trying to see past Gackt's broad shoulders to make sure there was no Tetsu-colored splatter on the ground below.

"I know," Gackt said, voice still quiet with amazement. "You should have seen him scale the masonry."

Hyde sighed. "Well, at least maybe now he'll leave us alone for a while. Jesus."

"Indeed. Although I'm surprised he fell for it at all. The very idea that I might ask for his help with a piece of music..." He laughed melodically.

Hyde filtered out this arrogance with practiced ease. "It only has to keep him out for another... what? Four months?" He attempted to say this lightly, but his voice gained octaves as the sentence neared its finish.

"Actually," Megumi cut in, entering the room from the kitchen with three cups of tea. "Closer to five. It often takes nearly ten months for a baby to be born."

Ignoring Hyde's face, which was shifting from white to green to grey like a mood ring, Gackt helped himself to a cup of tea and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? Ten months? How peculiar!" He sipped his tea as this piece of knowledge bounced about in the lonely expanse of his mind.

In the interest of self-preservation, Tetsu did not return to the house for some time. The peace and quite allowed Hyde to settle into good humour, at least by comparison. He seemed to be learning to accept his peculiar, unorthodox fate of child-bearing, so far as to even humour Gackt in his increasingly frequent grandiose plans regarding their biologically-inexplicable offspring.

"...With my good looks and musical prowess, combined with your gentle, feminine aura, it stands to reason that this child will surpass in fame and skill even the most celebrated persons of our time. In music, in intelligence, it will be peerless! Truly, Hyde, what might a child do with your coquettish charm _and_ my intelligence?"

" _Your_ intelligence?" A month ago, Hyde would have suggested the possibility of the child staring, slack-jawed, up into the rain until it drowned itself like a domestic turkey, but he merely smiled indulgently as Gackt continued with enthusiasm.

"We will teach it to play our full, combined range of instruments, to sing like an angel, to write and to cook and to speak everything from French to Korean! Oh, Hyde, this will be a child of which you will be proud to declare from the rooftops, 'This being burst forth from _my_ loins!'"

Hyde laughed, only sort of wanting to stuff Gackt's own ridiculous, poetic ego up his nose until he asphyxiated. "As much as I would _love_ to shout that from the rooftops, I how the hell do you plan on cramming all that into one poor kid's brain? You'll kill it. Besides, you don't even speak understandable French."

Gackt was absolutely appalled that Hyde would even suggest such a thing. "Hyde, I am absolutely appalled that you would even suggest such a thing." He did, however, decide to go home immediately and practice his French, but did not voice this thought as it would give his intentions away to Hyde.

"Gacchan, remember that conversation we had about paying attention to when you're speaking out loud versus when you're thinking?" Hyde asked, voice reasonably innocent, but smirk giving it all away. Gackt swore under his breath. If there was one thing he despised, it was looking stupid in front of people.

Surrounded by a cornucopia of books intended to help one teach oneself French, Gackt studied with a vengeance. "Tomorrow, I will speak to Hyde only in French!" He paused thoughtfully, then added, " _Demain, je parlerai à Hyde seulement en français!!_ " And nodded with the satisfaction of Napoleon Bonaparte reclaiming the rule of Paris for _Les Cent-Jours_.

As it was never a bad idea of brush up on the basics, Gackt began running through basic vocabulary. He skimmed _les nombres_ briefly. He gave _les jours de la semaine_ a passing glance. He reviewed _les mois de l'année_ for good measure.

This resurfacing French knowledge cartwheeling through his mind, it occurred to him suddenly and irrelevantly that Mana's solo works were created under a name meaning, cryptically, "my ten months".

" _Dix mois? Très bizarre!_ " He thought, and this thought joined its limited brethren inside his mind. He felt an odd sort of sensation, like a sort of connection, but could not place it. It felt as though it was behind his eyes, but above his spinal cord... He put it off to having eaten too much rich food over the course of the day and swore to buy the sugar-free orange juice for breakfast the next morning.

Glancing at the clock and seeing that it was already eleven-forty-five, Gackt did his evening stretches over the back of the couch, washed the avocado mask off of his face, stripped naked and examined his person for stray hairs, and finally slid into the slick, welcoming comfort of his satin sheets. All of that talk of barely sleeping was a downright lie - it wasn't called "beauty sleep" for nothing, and one simply _could not_ be beautiful on four hours of sleep a night.

***

Two hours and eighteen minutes later, Hyde was ripped from a very pleasant dream concerning himself (sans baby) and Fujiko Kano and back into the oppressive real world by the blaring of the telephone. He groaned, attempting to reach the phone on the bedside table without being able to roll on to his stomach.

"Hyde! I've just realized a most terrible thing!"

Hyde groaned once more into the receiver, unsure of where this conversation could be going but absolutely sure he was not going to like it. "Gackt, it's two-thirty in the fucking morning." He represented his initial displeasure in the obligatory fashion by stating the ungodly time.

"I am indeed sorry for waking you, but this is a matter of utmost importance. Oh, Hyde, this is all my fault." Gackt sounded more earnestly contrite than Hyde had ever heard him. A righteous spark of recognized martyrdom began to overtake his irritation. He struggled to a sitting position, Gackt continuing to blame himself in various terms through the fiber optics.

"Oh, my Hyde, I am _so_ sorry. I can only apologize and hope you can find it in yourself to forgive my miserable stupidity for not seeing it sooner, for having caused it to begin with... None of this would ever have come to pass if not for me."

"You're damn right it's your fault! _Thank_ you! About goddamn time you realized it!" Despite his harsh words, there was a vindicated smile on his face. Hyde was pleased to finally be getting the right attitude from Gackt. This was all because the hypocritical bastard got antsy about the idea of people sticking things up his behind, but didn't think Hyde should mind it at all. Damn him! Hyde decided not to forgive Gackt right away. He had a right to be angry, and a right to milk all the fawning and gift-buying he could from Gackt before finally melting and having amazing make-up sex (hopefully by this time, he would have gotten rid of his enormous anti-sex buffer one way or another).

Gackt was near tears. "Oh, _Haido!_ If I had only realized that Mana was capable of such things, I would have taken more precautions -- Why are you screaming?"

Megumi rolled over, awoken at last, and gave Hyde a spitefully groggy glare. "Why are you screaming?"

Hyde continued to scream simply to spite them both, punctuating the ends of his sentences with swearing as if to keep it from becoming a single, infuriated run-on. "GACKT-what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about-JESUS-did-you-wake-me-up-just-to-feed-me-this-shit-YOU-BASTARD-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-GODDAMMIT-and-what-the-flying-fucking-fuck-are-you-fucking-talking-the-fuck-about-FUCK-FUCK-FUCK!"

Gackt waited, either in patience or utter confusion, until Hyde ran out of breath, then picked up in the same contrite tone, which now only made Hyde want to rip out his collar bones and stab out his eyes with them. Through the phone. "Let me explain more fully. For the past several months we have wondered how this miracle of your pregnancy came about, how it is possible, yes? Hyde, I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, but it is in fact not a miracle at all, but a _curse_."

"OF-COURSE-IT'S-A-CURSE-YOU-IDIOT-HAVE-YOU-BEEN-WALKING-AROUND-WITH-IT-ON-YOUR-STOMACH-YOU-STUPID-FUCK-AAAAAAUGH-I'M-GOING-TO-MAKE-YOU-EAT-YOUR-TESTICLES!!!!"

Gackt picked up as though this interlude had not taken place at all. "I have spoken of my less than good-willed departure from Malice Mizer, I am sure. Clearly, this is all a cruel revenge of Mana's for my leaving his band without my vocal talents. I had no idea he was able to perform such feats, and indeed I am more than a little curious to discover how he managed it, but oh, Hyde, you are but a proxy in this curse, a way to make me miserable for past actions, and I cannot apologize to you enough."

This insight into Gackt's delusion had shocked Hyde into silence. He gaped, open-mouthed, for a few moments as this sunk in, listening to Gackt's pretty crying on the other end of the phone line. If he was expecting to be comforted, he was in for a surprise. "You arrogant bastard," Hyde began, voice quiet and actually rather matter-of-fact. "Where the hell did you get this idea?"

Gackt sobbed desperately, and Hyde wondered whether his tears were making his contacts float about in his eyes like intoxicated fish. "The name of his band, Hyde! It means 'my ten months'! How could it be more obvious?!"

"Why the hell would he name his whole band something like that just for some revenge?" Better to make Gackt see logic in his own twisted way than to simply point out that this was the most retarded thing Hyde had ever heard in his entire life.

"For exactly that reason, don't you see?! He knows I study French. He knew I would discover the meaning of the name! He wanted me to know it was him!" Gackt was sniffling still, but with a clear air of defense now.

"Come on, Gackt." Hyde was getting tired. "Mana can't just magically make me pregnant."

"Something did." Gackt replied darkly. Hyde felt a twist in his stomach, but ignored it to sigh in exasperation.

"You are a fucking schizophrenic. Get back to sleep." He hung up the phone before Gackt could give him any more reasons to try to commit him.

He hoped their baby wasn't going to turn out this fucking nutty, because then the only kind thing to do would be to kill it rather than let it drown itself in a glass of water, or worse, go on living until the age of 33.


	4. In Which Hyde Reveals How Childish He Can Truly Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyde is forced to adopt a strict prenatal regime under the fascist rule of his wife.

It was a quiet day at the Takarai household.

So far, there had been no calls from any of L'Arc en Ciel making uncomfortable inquiries as to Hyde's whereabouts, no hormonal dramatics from Hyde himself, and no less-hormonal-but-no-less-dramatic outbursts from Gackt, who had very nearly set up permanent residence at the house of his best friend, lover, and now bearer of his first child that he knew of (No one had suspected, when he quietly and cautiously left his toothbrush with Hyde's and Megumi's in the little cup by the sink, that this was only a test of their receptiveness to his belongings of all descriptions and sensitivities being flung all about the house, resulting in all sorts of awkwardness).

However, it was only eight-thirty. Over breakfast, there were a thousand opportunities for upheaval.

Megumi took one of these opportunities by the horns. "Hideto, have you been taking proper care of yourself?"

This question could be interpreted so many ways, none of which were things Hyde felt like discussing, that he merely grunted a vague assertion to his bowl of cereal. Megumi was not to be deterred.

"You haven't been smoking or drinking?"

Hyde felt a wave of nostalgia sweep over him, and sighed at the memory of having each and every cigarette he had tried to enjoy slapped out of his hands for months. It was uncanny how no matter where he was, no matter how alone he thought himself to be, Gackt or Megumi would appear out of nowhere, summoned by the sound of the match and the smell of burning paper and tobacco. Glancing down at the fingers holding the spoon, he noted (not for the first time) how the nails were becoming whiter and shinier. He sighed.

"Have you been exercising?"

This question caught him off guard. Exercising? "What d'you mean, exercising? I have another human being attached to my stomach and you ask if I'm exercising?"

Megumi sighed. "It's important to keep fit when pregnant, Hideto. It makes labour much easier."

Labour... it loomed over the horizon like the invading Roman army.

"I think you should take a Lamaze class."

Hyde had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but he nodded again into his breakfast simply to avoid talking about it anymore. "Sure. Sounds great." A class... maybe they talked about what sort of foods to eat, or about not smoking... Maybe they offered the course online. Hyde could handle that.

Megumi was giving him a patient look from across the table. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

Hyde tried to summon the will to be indignant, but failed. "No."

"Lamaze classes are training sessions for pregnant women to physically and psychologically prepare them for labour." Gackt offered, stepping into the kitchen and pouring his customary breakfast of sugar-free orange juice into a glass with a few cotton balls. Megumi smiled and greeted him, casually suggesting that tomorrow, he might put on his clothing _before_ coming to breakfast.

"I'm sorry," Gackt said with a shrug, "Some habits are hard to break." And he took another sip of his juice.

Hyde, meanwhile, was trying to puzzle out the meaning of Gackt's explanation. Psychologically? He didn't like the sound of that. Not that "physically" was much more appealing. He shot a glance at Megumi.

" _You_ never took any... any _classes_." He accused. Megumi gave him a withering look.

"I kept myself fit. I _was_ psychologically prepared."

"I'm prepared!" Hyde declared, throwing his spoon into his bowl definitively.

Gackt snickered, quickly masking the action by taking a sip of his orange juice, which of course was a very bad way of covering giggles. He choked.

Megumi tilted her head sympathetically at Hyde. "Darling, you are perhaps the _least_ prepared for labour of any person I know."

Gackt managed a shallow, shuddering breath before collapsing into another fit of coughing.

Abruptly changing tactics, Hyde pouted darkly. "Well, excuse me if a _man_ isn't equipped with the mental tools to undergo _giving birth_."

"Oh, Hideto, I wish you'd stop playing that up so much. You've had months to deal with those issues."

Gackt's convulsive coughing caught in his throat, and he gagged.

" _I'm not playing it up!_ "

"Don't shout, darling."

Struck with sudden brilliance, Gackt attempted to control himself long enough to take a soothing sip of juice, but failed to retain one explosive cough which sent the acidic substance splashing into his vulnerable eyes. He groaned and slid to the floor in agony, barely able to breathe through his cough reflex.

"What would I have to do in these classes?" Hyde demanded suspiciously. Megumi paused to think.

"Breathing exercises to keep you from hyperventilating, exercising the muscles that will be used during labour-"

"Wait, _what_ muscles?!"

"My...eyes! Auugh! _HACK!_ My throat!!" Gackt reached desperately in the direction he believed to be the table and his only possible salvation at the hands of his friends, eyes shut tight and streaming.

"I'm not going to any goddamn classes! You can't make me!"

"Hideto, I'm doing this for your health!"

Hyde _hated_ it when Megumi tried to be concerned about his health! As a matter of fact, it had been Megumi's concern for his health that had brought this state of affairs to his attention to begin with. Her and that damn fruit smoothie.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Megumi asked, and Hyde realized that this had been one of those involuntary and inopportune occasions of speaking his thoughts aloud. Gackt was teaching him bad habits. He swore, this time aloud on purpose.

"Takarai Hideto, I am not the cause of this. I am not the one-" She went on to describe, in disturbingly accurate detail, precisely what she had not done (and what Gackt, by implication, _had_ ).

Some time during this embarrassing list of obscenities which Megumi had not performed upon Hyde's person (sometimes due to the lack of required anatomy), Gackt slid into the empty chair between husband and wife. Hyde glanced over at him, appalled by the red-eyed, shuddering thing that met his eyes.

"You look like shit," he commented to Gackt once Megumi had ended her tirade, and Gackt turned baleful, bloodshot, watering eyes on his lover. Hyde noticed that one of his blue contacts (which he had evidently put on in lieu of pants) had migrated slightly up and to the outside, giving the other man a decidedly brain-dead appearance.

"I'm sorry," Gackt said at length, voice rough and cracked. "I haven't put on my make-up yet."

"Don't change the subject, please, dear. I'm going to sign you up for Lamaze classes, and you're going to appear at them. Gackt will make sure of that. Gackt, don't you think Hyde should make sure he's prepared for labour?"

"Of course," Gackt rasped in a mockery of his usual charmingly smooth voice, giving Hyde what would have been a deep, meaningful, loving gaze had one of his eyes not appeared to be pointing at the light fixture over the table. "I wouldn't want anything to happen to him or the baby."

Hyde scowled. "Fuck. If it means you'll quit harping on me about being 'healthy', I'll fly to the damn _moon_."

***

One look at the happenings in the Lamaze class was enough to drastically change Hyde's outlook. No amount of persuasion, verbal or physical, could retain him. Megumi asked later how Gackt and his entire squad of American soldiers had been unable to control a pregnant man under five and a half feet tall, and Gackt had merely shrugged, inadvertently exposing the impressive bite mark in the soft underside of his forearm.

***

"Hideto?" Megumi's head popped through the little square entrance to the attic and peered around. "I know you're here. You can't just sit around doing nothing, sweetie, it will make things miserable for you later."

There was no answer, so Megumi sighed with resignation and hauled herself fully into the dark, dusty space. "If you stay up here much longer, Hide, you'll be undoing all the good of not smoking these last few months."

"I don't care!" Came the frenzied reply, immediately followed by a few harsh coughs.

"Hideto, don't act like this. Come out?"

He remained frustratingly silent, and Megumi was hesitant to brute-force search for him, risking upsetting any of the hundreds of arachnids that had no doubt laid claim to this storage space. She headed back down with another sigh.

A few moments later, Gackt's peroxided head lifted cautiously through the trap door to examine the attic. He had a disapproving look on his face; Gackt and Filth had been enemies for years now, and recalling what horrible things he inflicted upon it when he held the upper hand (with, say, a vacuum and an imported housekeeper to handle it), he was wary of what revenge Filth might extract upon him now that he was outnumbered so staggeringly. He cleared his throat.

"Hyde? Please come down!" He said, and hoped Filth couldn't hear how frightened he was.

"No!" Hyde replied from some unseen corner. If he didn't act quickly, Filth might take Hyde as a hostage! Gackt couldn't let it happen!

" _Haido~_ ," he said, voice the very epitome of seduction. " _Please_ come out... I'm so aroused... I need to feel you under me, around me..." He topped of his performance with a desperate moan and gasp, and reflected for a moment how fantastic an actor he was, to have just given _himself_ an erection.

There were a few scuffles in the corner. Hyde's face faded into view a few feet to his right, questioning but interested.

"You're not just trying to lure me out of the attic because Megumi told you to, are you?" He queried. Gackt shook his head, biting his lip and flushing convincingly. And people said he couldn't act. "Well, okay." Hyde agreed, and Gackt stepped down to allow the smaller man out of the attic.

Instantly, Hyde's vision was turned to a sea of white as a pillowcase was jammed over his head, and he was grabbed roughly by both arms. Taken by surprise and blinded, his struggles were useless, and Megumi and Gackt succeeded in dragging his thrashing form to the bed and cuffing his wrists together (when Megumi had suggested the plan to Gackt and expressed her doubts that they could hold him still enough to tie his wrists, Gackt had rushed to the guest room, now his own, and reappeared with a pair of real handcuffs, steel encased in black patent leather with red satin insets that declared 'Hard Core', and she had thought better than to ask) and around a decorative carving in the headboard, effectively trapping him. Megumi snatched the pillowcase from Hyde's head.

Hyde had already begun to gnaw forcefully on his upper arm in an attempt at escape, but he ceased this when his lovers came into view. "You tricked me!" He shouted. Gackt shrugged easily.

"Hyde, did you _really_ think I could possibly be aroused by you in your present protuberance? You deserved to be caught." He shook his head in apparent disappointment.

Hyde howled and screamed and yanked for several minutes, but quickly grew tired and had to sit down like a rational human being. He eyed his captors balefully.

"Hideto, you have to do some sort of exercise." Megumi said, and the tone of voice was the same one she used for statements like "Don't leave your wet towel on the bathroom floor again," or "Quit pacifying your son with dirty magazines."

"I'll do exercise," Hyde promised plaintively. He did a few clumsy and off-balance leg-lifts to show how willful he was, but Megumi was unimpressed.

"If you won't go to Lamaze classes, you at least have to do _something_. Maybe you can get a personal trainer?"

"Yeah, and tell them what?" Hyde was glancing around the room, calculating and desperate.

" _I_ have a personal trainer." Gackt supplied almost entirely irrelevantly, perhaps worried that Megumi and Hyde would forget he existed.

"Well, I don't see you coming up with any better ideas." Megumi snapped, crossing her arms and jutting one hip out (and ignoring Gackt as had come to be second nature). "Or being very helpful at all. This is _your health_ we're talking about, after all!"

Hyde scowled. "No one's ever hand-cuffed me to the bed about _my health_ before," he muttered.

" _I've_ hand-cuffed you to the bed before!" Gackt reminded him in much the same vein as his previous comment.

"You're putting the baby in danger, too. Do you have to be so selfish? Can't you at least _try_ something? Jogging? Pre-natal yoga?" Megumi was holding out her palms in a gesture of supplication to Hyde's stubbornness.

"Hey! _I_ have a yoga instructor!" Gackt said, tone suggesting that he was surprised by his own possible usefulness. He clutched at Hyde's arm in excited urgency. "Come with me to yoga! It's wonderfully relaxing!"

Hyde stared at Gackt in horrified silence, and Megumi took the opportunity to step in, quick and effective. "Oh, Gackt, please take Hideto with you to a class. I'm sure it will do him good. When do you go?"

"Tuesdays and Thursdays," Gackt answered excitedly.

"Well, that's tonight. It's decided, then." She turned and left the room to go on with the day's duties. Hyde could have sworn he heard a mallet slamming down on to a block of wood.

***

"My love, could you _try_ not to be so fat? Just for the ride over? You're making my car bottom out over all the speed bumps."

***

"Come along, Hyde, there's absolutely no need to be so nervous," Gackt encouraged, exemplifying his complete lack of empathy. "Sensei is benevolent in the extreme, oblivious to pop culture, and likely under a constant influence of marijuana. He is a most suiting teacher for your precarious state."

Hyde dawdled half out of the passenger door, pretending to be having difficulty standing up. From this perspective, begging to be released from the bed was looking like a more and more foolish decision. But he had had to pee so badly. The two-litre bottle Megumi had left him had looked so unappealing. At the time.

He was abruptly hauled to his feet by a smooth, vanilla-scented hand around his wrist, too shocked by the change in position to be offended by Gackt's assertion that he "must weigh about twice what he normally did." Then he was being led towards the door, Gackt with his arm around Hyde's shoulders and chattering empty prose about sex, or something.

"An amazing exercise for both body and spirit that leaves you feeling relaxed and peaceful."

Hyde prayed as hard as he ever had in his life for a sudden thunderstorm.

"Of course, it helps you develop flexibility, too, which is something I've always taken pride in. You're not so flexible even normally, and I can't believe you'll be able to do much the way you are now, but I'm sure it will be enjoyable anyway."

Maybe then, the building would get struck by lightning. No more yoga class if the building was on fire. (Wait, was Gackt suggesting they might have sex soon?)

"My very favourite are inversion poses, like the downward-facing dog. Oh, but again, I don't think you'll be able to do inversions in your current state. Sensei says that pregnant or menstruating women shouldn't perform inversion poses, as it disrupts the natural downward flow of energy."

All those people, fleeing the building, stupid yoga pants ablaze... Now that would have been worth the trip down here. (No, apparently Gackt had been talking about yoga this whole time. It was so difficult to tell with all this talk of "flexibility" and "downward-facing dogs". Disappointment.)

Hyde was not rewarded with a thunderstorm, flash-flood or any other unexpected natural disasters, and so he could only wrinkle his nose in a nonviolent protest, like Gandhi, as Gackt cheerfully steered him into the room.

The first thing he thought as he wandered into the lowly-lit 'class' was that he stuck out like a sore thumb decorated in christmas lights. Everyone else in the room, minus one woman who looked to be in her late fifties, was slim and willowy, dressed in the same loosely fitting, soft pants and comfortable-yet-flattering shirts that Gackt had forced him to wear ("flattering" and even "loosely fitting" were, sadly, ideals Hyde was unable to attain - his shirt kept making sly attempts to creep up above his bulbous abdomen to relax ridiculously at his solar plexus, while the pants, pressed down by the very same bump and lacking any real purchase on his slim, masculine hips, were making a bid in an unnervingly opposite direction). Some people were engaged in stretching themselves in strange and unnatural ways. Others seemed to have already reached some enlightened state of being which allowed them to sit with their legs crossed, feet up, and look perfectly comfortable doing so.

A large, billowy piece of brown fabric with goldish trim wafted up to them, but then Hyde realized it was actually a person wearing some kind of pseudo-Indian clothing. He jerked in surprise and nearly lost his balance. Gackt smiled. The billowing person came to rest slightly too close to them, as though he or she had simply stopped because of the physical resistance.

"Gackt-san, I see you brought a guest tonight," the instructor greeted, still failing to reveal their gender. Gackt nodded.

"This is my friend, Hyde. Hyde is looking for prenatal exercise, but was uncomfortable with the traditional options." Gackt explained. The instructor nodded, although this might not have been a representation of any understanding or agreement but simply due to the air conditioner kicking on behind... it.

"I see. _Namaste_ , Hyde. Please make yourself at home. As you will see, there are a variety of levels to each pose, and alternate poses to those that you should find fundamentally difficult. This is an environment where everyone can work at their own level, for their own benefits. Please, take a seat."

It was shockingly like listening to an even more vacuous, even more genderless version of Gackt.

Gackt led them to an empty spot near the back, much to Hyde's relief, and began rolling out the sticky mats he had brought for them. To their left, a young woman was hooking her ankles behind her head and arching her back. As the instructor had said they could each work at their own levels, Hyde decided to work on sitting down on the floor.

By the time he found himself in what might liberally be called a seated position, Gackt was already sitting in that ridiculous lotus position with his hands palms-up on his knees, eyes closed, like he thought he was Buddha or something. Recalling Gackt's entire career based on material obsession, Hyde decided to be the hand of karma. He leaned over and flicked Gackt in the arm.

Gackt gave a strangled yelp, turning to glare. " _What?_ " He hissed.

"What are we doing?" Hyde asked, or possibly demanded.

The instructor might have heard him, or might simply have chosen that moment to announce the beginning of the class. "Find a comfortable position, everyone."

Hyde tried a moment, but ultimately found himself to already be failing at yoga.

"Let us take a moment to find our centres and breathe. In lieu of the weather lately, I think a cooling breath would be a good choice tonight."

There were a few murmurs of _yes, yes, a cooling breath_ and Hyde looked around to see if anyone else was just pretending they knew what was going on. No one was.

He listened to everyone whistle subtly for a few long minutes before the instructor remembered he or she was teaching a class and said, "Now slowly open your eyes, bringing yourself back, and on your next breath, bring your hands in front of the heart." Hyde jerkily attempted to do this in the same fashion as everyone else. The instructor smiled benevolently at the room. " _Namaste_."

" _Namaste_ ," the room replied, including Gackt, and Hyde wished someone would tell him what it meant. Or better yet, stop acting like a cult.

From there, things only got worse. It seemed his great achievement of sitting down went unnoticed as they then had to stand up again. Not only that, but he was expected to balance on one foot with his arms all wrapped around each other for an outrageous amount of time, and then pretend to be several different kinds of warriors which all sounded suspiciously metaphorical and didn't look very war-like at all.

"As you hold this pose, repeat to yourself, _I stand strong in the face of closed-mindedness and negativity!_ "

To Hyde's relief, no one said this aloud.

At this point, it was necessary for them to sit down again, and after a great deal of swearing under his breath, Hyde managed to do so. They did a few things sitting down, twisting themselves up like pretzels, and then, happily, the instructor told them to lie down on their backs as it got up to turn off the lights.

Thinking that perhaps yoga _was_ his thing after all, Hyde did so.

"Close your eyes," the instructor instructed,

Hyde did so with a contented sigh.

"And let the guided imagery lead you into meditation."

 _Shit,_ Hyde thought.

For the next several minutes, he was forced to lie on his uncomfortably thin mat in the dark while some tape forced him to imagine himself adrift on his mat in a "sea of peace" (considering how top-heavy he was in this condition, it was more stress-inducing than relieving), casting out a "searchlight of love" into the open sky, where it would theoretically be refracted to all the world's inhabitants, or the whole solar system, or hell, the whole universe. Hyde thought the whole thing sounded a little dodgy and rooted in Scientology.

Luckily, the end of this peculiar trip marked the end of the class. Hyde struggled to bring himself into an upright position as Gackt stretched luxuriously and began rolling up his mat.

"Oh, Hyde," he said contentedly as Hyde scooted off his mat and began to roll it up from the floor, figuring he could use the roll as a sort of cane. "I'm so glad that as my search light of love cast out over the sea of peace, it landed on you."

It was probably an indication of how much good yoga had actually done him that Hyde found that almost sweet.

***

Certainly he knew that other options were available, but in Hyde's rockstar universe, maternity pants were things that happened to _other people_. It was extremely likely that didn't even know what an expansion panel was.

And so, until that fateful day, Hyde's fashionably-worn, patent leather, boot-cut, lace-up, low-rise, snake-skin, dirt-washed, silver-studded skinny jeans had been sliding along on borrowed time, gradually being worn lower and lower, being laced looser and looser, zipped less and less. He figured it wasn't a problem. The legs still fit fine, and he spent most of his time at the house anyway.

Therefore, he didn't even feel bad when he sauntered into the kitchen one Sunday morning, dressed in one of his favourite pairs of pants and a comfortable shirt with some nonsensical French on it in foil letters. Megumi was sitting at the little dinette table, sipping a coffee and scanning the newspaper. Gackt was using one of the other chairs to prop his leg up while he stretched over it.

"Good morning, dear." Megumi said without looking up. Hyde grunted.

"Hyde! You are looking remarkably effeminate this morning!" Gackt announced without looking up. Hyde grunted. He poured himself a mug of coffee (now the only drug he was allowed), shuffled about to look at the food choices that required the least preparation, and eventually settled on a bowl of cold cereal.

He got a bowl out of the cabinet. He retrieved the milk from the refrigerator. He shook off the spoon he had used in his coffee and tossed it into the bowl with a rattle.

The cold cereals were, inexplicably, located on the uppermost shelf. Megumi had had no end of fun teasing him, as this put them in the small-but-awkward zone where their height difference made it possible for her to reach them and very difficult for Hyde to.

Hopeful that everyone was too absorbed in their activities to notice, he opened the cupboard and went up on tiptoe, using one hand to push up on the countertop. Almost there... so close...

And that was the precise moment his pants, not buttoned and almost entirely unzipped in order to fit around his protuberant stomach, decided it simply wasn't worth the effort anymore and flung themselves to the linoleum in a fit of melodrama.

The decorative snaps and studs clattered like an alarm.

Now, Megumi and Gackt looked up.

"Oh, Hyde, you're wearing one of those g-strings I bought you!" Gackt exclaimed in delight, gracefully swooping his leg down from the back of the chair. "Aren't they just the most comfortable thing? I just _love_ microfiber, don't you? It's a good thing I bought them a size larger than I initially thought, too, because it looks like it fits _perfectly!_ "

Megumi, in her feminine compassion, took pity on her panic-stricken, struggling husband and stepped over to yank his pants up from his ankles and back where they belonged. Although she surely meant the very best, and although without some kind of intervention it would have taken Hyde upwards of five minutes to get into a position where he would have been able to reach the waistband of his jeans, and never mind standing back up once he'd gotten a hold of them, this action was what led to the massive Wardrobe Revolution of Month Six.

Megumi was kneeling in front of him (sadly, she was in that position trying to do up his trousers rather than undo them), yanking and shucking at his pants with a frustrated look on her face. "Hideto, these pants don't even fit you!" She exclaimed at last. Mortified, Hyde wrenched the garment away from her.

"They do, too!"

Megumi stood up and gestured. "They don't fasten! They don't even _touch_ on the front!"

Hyde was shuffling as quickly as he could away from her accusations. "They fit fine!" He insisted. He had seen too many conversations just like this over the past few months to not know how this would end up, but he couldn't just give up without a fight, _he couldn't_.

Megumi sighed. "All right, Hideto. Do your hair. We're going to get you some new clothes."

Hyde gaped in shock as images of soft cotton jeans with tent-like projections of pink knit elasticked to the front and wrap-around shirts with huge darts to make room for grotesquely swollen breasts and abdomens overwhelmed him.

This wasn't about whether or not he exercised or smoked or drank, this wasn't about public appearances or his singing career; damnit, _this was about his sense of fashion._

" _No!!!_ " He shrieked, voice going to a pitch he hadn't even known he could still achieve. He grasped his hair in both fists and stomped his foot. " _I don't want new pants!!! I won't!!! I won't!!!_ " He stomped again, it having been very satisfying the first time, and before he knew it, he was pitching a full-out fit, complete with thrashing about and ceaseless, wordless screaming several octaves higher than his normal voice. Gackt was frozen a few moments in horror, then clamped his hands over his ears and joined in the screaming, though thankfully his voice faded as he tore from the room and to some distant corner of the house.

Megumi crossed her arms and watched her husband with pursed lips. "Hideto, we have a three-year-old son. If you think I'm going to be impressed, you'd better think again."

But Hyde had gone to a place he hadn't been in decades. Suddenly inspired by childhood tactics, he took a deep breath and held it with puffed cheeks. Megumi's eyes widened.

"Hideto... You're not trying to..."

Hyde glared passionately at her disbelieving expression as he clamped his throat shut, feeling he was gaining ground with ever passing moment.

Megumi sighed. "You do know that the worst you can do to yourself is pass out? You'll start breathing again as soon as you're unconscious."

Whatever. She was trying to talk him out of it, which meant she knew she was losing. The pants were as good as safe. Victory was his.

He felt a little dizzy, though.

Maybe he'd better continue his revolt from a position on the floor. Wouldn't do to fall over and crack his skull on the counter as he went by.

Maybe all the way on the floor would be good. Might frighten her.

...

When he woke up, the clock told him it had been nearly three and a half hours. He was discouraged to find he was still lying on the kitchen floor, and even more discouraged when he realized he was practically naked.

This _had_ happened to him once before, but he had still had traces of Cool Whip melting on his nipples and, though the silk tie had been loosened by that point, it had still helped to bring back recollections of the hours before. This predicament left him baffled.

Head aching like he hadn't experienced since Megumi poured all his liquor down the drain, Hyde struggled to his feet and stumbled into the living room, but no one was there. Still baffled, he groaned his way down the hall and into the bedroom, intent on pulling on a pair of pajama pants, popping some ibuprofen and snoozing a few more hours on purpose.

But his pajama pants weren't in the bedroom.

Maybe they were in the laundry. He staggered to the bathroom and peered into the hamper.

No dice. In fact, there was nothing of his in the laundry, which seemed a little odd.

Back in the bedroom, he opened the doors to his closet and shrieked in horror.

_Gone?!_

No fashionably-worn, patent leather, boot-cut, lace-up, low-rise, snake-skin, dirt-washed, silver-studded skinny jeans. Instead, there was a note on a piece of paper impaled on a hanger: _Dearest Hideto; I have taken all your old clothes and replaced them with appropriate choices. Love, Megumi_

And replaced them she had. True, they weren't as bad as Hyde had imagined, but still there were... panels. And things with elastic waistbands. And Hyde's morals standings to consider.

Well. If that was the way the game was played, he'd just go naked. It was warm weather, after all, and not like anybody hanging around the house hadn't seen it before. Pouting but resolute, he padded into the den to watch television in the buff.

When he opened the door, the television was already on and playing the theme song to _Japan's Next Top AV Idol_. Gackt turned around from his place on the couch, but upon seeing Hyde's voluptuous, pregnant figure completely revealed, he screeched like a banshee and burst into tears. Hyde frowned.

He went back into the bedroom.

He plucked a pair of relaxed fit pants with an expansion panel that must go up to the nipples from their hanger.

He pulled them over his head, sat down in the corner of the closet, and closed the door.


	5. In Which Several Months Go By Totally Unexplained and Gackt Throws An Excellent Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyde gets a visit from a very special guest, and Gackt throws a very special kind of party.

Megumi's return home was awkwardly devoid of any greetings. She set her keys on the kitchen counter and looked around, but despite the fact that she was holding shopping bags, no Gackt appeared to carry them for her with a flourish (whereupon he would afterwards probably leave them sitting where ever he happened to let go of them, for instance the middle of the hallway where Hyde would later trip on them on his way to a midnight pee), and despite the fact that said bags were brimming with microwavable, tropical-oil-containing frozen snacks, no Hyde appeared to begin eating them.

The ending theme to _Japan's Next Top AV Idol_ was distantly audible from the den, and so, suspicious of what might be going on having left the boys to their own devices, Megumi set the groceries on the counter and went back to check.

She found Gackt huddled under the ugly flannel blanket that usually adorned the back of the couch, keening pathetically with every breath, and lightly tapped what she hoped was his shoulder to get his attention. He yelped and stuck his head out from beneath the blanket, and she sighed as she realized she had, as she had feared, inadvertently joined the untold thousands who had tapped Gackt's ass.

"Gackt? What's wrong?" she inquired sympathetically. Gackt sat up a little with a harried look on his face.

"Hyde came in here and I saw it and _it was awful!!_ " He shrieked, and then would say no more. Megumi decided to leave him to his trauma and search out her husband.

She checked all of his normal hiding places (the attic, the guest bedroom, even put in a call to Sakura's house), but he was nowhere to be found. She stood in the living room calling his name and shaking a bag of double-chip chocolate chip cookies, but there came no frantic thumping of feet down the hallway, and so she was forced to retire to the kitchen to make their son his afternoon snack and simply hope for the best.

***

It had been three days since Hyde had taken refuge in the closet, and he still didn't see any reason to leave (except for once a day ago, when he had conducted a stealthy operation to Megumi's bedside table to steal her 'secret' stash of I'm-Menstruating-and-Can-Eat-Whatever-I-Want chocolates, which had since been keeping him alive in the darkness, and sixteen not quite as stealthy operations to the master bathroom to pee). Mostly, his sleeping had been very poor at best, but he had at last created a satisfactory nest out of ugly pregnancy clothing in which he spent the better part of his day lying down and gorging himself on chocolate.

Maybe it was the stress.

Maybe it was the poor sleep and poor nutrition.

Hyde fell into a deep sleep, the first of the three days, lounging comfortably atop his pile of high-waisted jeans and wrap-around shirts, and slept deeply and dreamlessly.

Something woke him suddenly. Struggling to sit up, and thinking he must have snored loudly and woken himself, he was surprised to see the inside of the closet lit up in warm, gold tones. He blinked frantically, eyes having become adjusted to having only the small sliver of light visible between the closet doors, and squinted at the radiant object sitting on a pile of boxes containing his out-of-fashion shoes.

Gabriel smiled at him.

Hyde continued to blink, then realized he had a chocolate-coloured bit of drool sliding down the side of his chin and began to frantically wipe at it with a powder-blue maternity panel. "What the hell?!" he demanded, that seeming to be the only reasonable question.

"Hail, favoured one! The Lord is with you." Gabriel said.

Hyde scowled, but he felt that it lacked the threatening nature he desired, as his opponent was glowing gold and he was still just trying to sit up straight. "What the fuck are you talking about?!"

"Do not be afraid, Hyde, for you have found favour with God." Gabriel explained, expression comforting. "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Anthony. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, and he will rule over Japan forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

Hyde stared, mouth agape, uncaring even that he was drooling more chocolate. " _WHAT?!_ "

"Well, you know." Gabriel leaned forward conspiratorially. "Your kid's going to be the biggest thing to hit the music industry since the invention of _music_."

Hyde was shaking his head and spluttering like a jammed sprinkler. "But... but, this... isn't possible!"

Gabriel cocked his head to one side. "Hyde, let's not try to pull the 'How can this be, since I have no relations with a man' number, since we both know that's not true. I mean, to be quite frank, you're lucky you're only bearing the one."

Hyde screamed.

With a jolt, he sat up in his pile of ugly, unfashionable clothes, in the dark, alone, but even this was no comfort to him. Still screaming, he stumbled out the door, out of the bedroom, and into the family room, where Gackt and Megumi were enjoying a quiet cup of tea. They glanced up at his screaming, reeling, mostly naked form, at which point Gackt hurriedly averted his gaze with a shudder.

"Oh, Hideto, dear, there you are."

" **GACKT** DID YOU COME UPON ME AS THE HOLY SPIRIT AND INSTILL IN MY WOMB A CHILD WHICH WILL BE CALLED HOLY?!?!" Hyde demanded in one shrieking breath. Gackt sighed, turning back to him with a loving smile.

"Oh Hyde, my Hyde, there is no need for such flattery. I forgive you for coming before me naked and fat and pasty."

Megumi cut in as Hyde stared in slightly hysteric disbelief at Gackt's utmost self-satisfaction. "Dear, if you hate those clothes so much, maybe we can get you some low-cut pants from the junior girls' section. I bet they would fit if you wore them beneath your stomach."

Hyde considered his options. "Okay. But they'd better not have any butterflies on the back pockets or anything."

Most of them didn't.

***

When Hyde opened the door to his house, he was shocked nearly catatonic by one of the very last things he had expected. It couldn't be the _very_ last thing he expected, as numbers 1-18 of the very last things he expected were taken up with Gackt doing anything from solving world hunger ("Those African children are just a bunch of whiny attention-whores," he'd been heard to huff once after a couple of shots too many. "I haven't eaten any protein for nearly a decade and you don't see _me_ developing kwashiorkor.") to solving the morning paper's sudoku puzzle ("Hyde, I certainly _want_ to be on good terms with numbers, but I don't feel they take me seriously as an individual and so I simply can't associate with them.")

After a harrowing trip to the drug store in a desperate search for vitamin E lotion to replace the two bottles he'd stolen from Megumi over the last several months, he had returned home with a sigh of relief, safe and content with the knowledge that he would have to endure no more horrific scenes ("All right, sir, you're not fooling anyone. Now put that kickball back on aisle five with the other children's toys and get out of here."). No sooner had the door clicked shut behind him, however, than his sense of serenity was skewered by a horrible, cacophonous shout of " _ **SURPRISE!**_ " that left him temporarily deaf and terrified, stumbling back against the door and dropping his bottles of lotion with two dull thuds.

Gackt swooped in on Hyde's defenseless form like a carrion bird. "Hyde, my Hyde, it's a baby shower for you!" He thrust a dixie cup of punch into Hyde's hands (Hyde was overjoyed for a severed moment before realizing that it was surely non-alcoholic), slipped an arm behind Hyde's back and pushed him into the living room the way he might push a dolly loaded with some exciting and expensive purchase he couldn't wait to show off to his friends.

The living room was populated with three distinct tribes, all with various and complicated political tensions between them and a high likelihood of something erupting into shooting, so that it almost felt as though Hyde had inadvertently driven to South Africa instead of his house. He glared through narrowed eyes at these untrustworthy groups, holding his punch before him as a first line of defense.

Idly leaning against the mantle and the back of a chair were, horrifically, the four men who made up the rest of Hyde's solo career. They looked confused as to why they were here, and no one but Fulton seemed to have as much as sipped their punch, although Kaz, Jin and Hiroki were still holding their cups. They had dropped whatever staring around they had obviously been doing before Hyde's arrival and were now staring at him in baffled disgust.

Carefully seated on the couch were two of men who made up the rest of L'Arc~en~Ciel (a quick glance around the room located Yukihiro at the buffet table, where he was waving at Hyde). Tetsu looked like a woman trying to shoulder some great attack on her dignity, martyred and overly polite as he sat, which made Hyde angry, as it seemed like if anyone should be assuming that role in this room, it was himself. Ken was approaching Hyde with an easy grin, next slapping him on the back and saying with laughter, "Congratulations, man! Who'da guessed you'd end up knocked up?" He glanced around in sudden suspicion. "Speaking of which, is Sakura coming? I owe him thirty-five hundred yen."

Hyde stared in disconnected unhappiness as Gackt swept him further still into the room to the last group, and seemingly the only one not overcome with the tense atmosphere. Hyde shuffled with increasing anxiety towards them, stumbling over his own feet as Gackt halted them before You, Chachamaru, Ju-ken and .

You was smiling amiably at him. "Hey! Long time, no see! Wow, you are getting far along. Do you know if it's a girl or a boy?"

Hyde's cheek spasmed, incapable of dealing with such obscenely inappropriate happiness.

Gackt clapped him on the back as though attempting to dislodge an enormous chunk of steak from Hyde's throat, but his words were, as usual, much harder to swallow than any meat. "Oh, no. Dear, delicate Hyde never looks at the screen during the ultrasounds. It makes him nauseous. I, however, can tell you for certain it is a boy because I saw its impressive manhood even through the monochromatic swirls of amniotic fluid."

Hyde groaned in unrestrained frustration. "Jesus, Gackt, Sakamoto-sensei told you that was the umbilical cord. Get over it, already."

Gackt chuckled and patted Hyde on the shoulder again, but he was saved from being ripped apart by his infuriated lover by the grand entrance yet another of Hyde's acquaintances. Sakura entered the living room with a loud "Hey!" clutching a bottle with a huge bow around the neck in one hand. Centering in on Hyde with missile-like precision, he strode over and clapped Hyde's free shoulder in an extremely manly fashion. Hyde coughed and was appalled to feel a mysterious chunk in his mouth. Spitting it out, he recognized it as most of a bit of shredded wheat from breakfast that morning. And he'd thought his throat had simply been closing out of stress.

Sakura was grinning and shaking his head. "Damn, Hyde, you take genderqueer to a whole new level. Then again, I knew it was gonna happen to you one of these days, you little skank, you! Congratulations. Hey, is Ken around anywhere? We've got a bet to settle." He held out the decorated bottle, which Hyde recognized with a jolt of excitement as **booze**. It had been so long since there had been any alcohol in the house. Megumi had dumped it all out and replaced it with suspiciously coloured drinks with suspicious numbers of fruits Hyde had never heard of. He hurriedly handed his partially disintegrated chunk of shredded wheat to Gackt, who obediently took it and examined it curiously. Quickly, Hyde reached out to accept the proffered bottle, planning to make a run for it. He could surely reach the bathroom and lock the door before anyone caught up to him, and he could definitely down the bottle before they retrieved the key and got the door open.

Unfortunately, Megumi appeared abruptly between Hyde's hand and its goal. She smiled complacently, but Hyde knew she had guessed his plan. "Sakura, is sake really an appropriate choice as a gift for a baby shower?"

Sakura shrugged. "It's worked as a gift for every other celebration with Hyde. I guess the cigars are right out, then, huh?" He chuckled.

Hyde whimpered.

Tetsu was watching this exchange from his position on the sofa with a disconnected expression, for the bassist and leader of sorts was deep in tumultuous thought.

Of course he knew he was partially to blame. Any band leader or manager could tell you that vocalists had to be watched. They were flighty, dramatic beings, ruled by base emotions, concerned almost entirely with themselves on every level. It was what made them what they were, and without these attributes their voices were usually nothing special. However, it was these very tendencies which could ruin publicity if things were not monitored carefully.

Tetsu knew this. He knew it well, and yet he'd allowed his own vocalist to wander, unsupervised, into a close friendship with another. Everybody, _everybody_ knew that vocalists, like any other dumb animal, had to be kept separate from others of their kind lest they should a) injure one another fighting over territory or b) breed. Foolishly, Tetsu had assumed that being married would be enough to keep Hyde in line, had allowed Gackt and Hyde to befriend and visit and party and make a movie together... In retrospect, it seemed so _obvious_ that Hyde had been lying when he said that he and Gackt had done each other's hair and nails at their sleepovers. Every other band must have been laughing at how blind Tetsu was.

On that note, though, where on Earth had Gackt's band been through all of this? Tetsu glanced up at their smiling faces. Perhaps they thought their singer's behavior was cute or charming? Maybe they felt, hippyishly, that it would be cruel to try to contain him? Or could it be that, in a horrible mix-up of roles so common in pet owners, that Gackt held the position of alpha among them and was allowed to romp amongst other vocalists as he chose? Tetsu grimaced just thinking of it. He stood up, unable to bear the weight of these thoughts alone any longer.

Hyde was padding cautiously towards the hallway, having managed to sneak out of the clutches of his lover when Gackt had become engrossed in describing the fetus' enormous and impressive umbilical cord to Sakura. He needed a little time to himself and hoped that everyone would simply let him go.

Naturally, this was not to be. He found himself suddenly overshadowed by one of the most ominous things known to mankind; Tetsu's face was crumpled in a tortured expression, his whole body shaking as though it was about to rattle apart at the joints, a dam riddled with fractures and unable to withstand the torrent of water roiling behind it. Hyde cowered behind raised arms as the wave rushed at him in slow motion, and he suddenly understood how all those Indonesians must have felt just before their lives ended.

" **Hyde!** _What_ were you thinking?! Did you even _consider_ the implications of this for the band?! You are _so_ selfish! _This_ could _ruin_ our publicity! Getting _pregnant_ out of wedlock! Think of the _tabloids_ , Hyde! _Think_ of them! Someone your age shouldn't even be _getting_ pregnant! You are _past_ your prime and _risking_ the health of this baby and yourself! And now that I think of it, this means you _didn't_ even use protection! What the _hell_ were you thinking?! I mean _look_ at that man! You probably have _diseases_ now!"

Gackt, in addition to everyone else, had turned around to see what was going on, and at this point he chivalrously stepped in to defend his maiden-of-sorts. "Excuse me, Tetsu. You know I respect you very much professionally, but if this kind of speech continues I shall have to request you take your leave." He wrapped his arms protectively around Hyde's shoulders, which were curled in and away in fear. "How could you even suggest such a thing? Hyde is my dearest love in all the world. I can't possibly have any sinful ailments to pass on to him, as I would never think of being so intimate with anyone else!"

Tetsu seemed, although still angry, at least a little embarrassed for having stepped over the line. Hyde was glancing up at Gackt with a warm kind of shock. Gackt drew himself up and held Hyde more tightly. "Certainly with everyone else, I use a condom! Even during fellatio!"

The room defined new levels of awkward silence. Tetsu gave Hyde a look which seemed to say, in a shrieking voice, ' _I told you so!_ ' Gackt, apparently feeling he had won, gave a parting shot before sauntering over to the table to get a glass of punch.

"So you can just think of that the next time you feel the need to assume the sexual habits of anyone around you."

"Yeah, Tetsu, you can just think of that." Sakura added quietly, laughter clear in his voice.

Hyde stood still in the place Gackt had left him, feeling inexplicably flat for someone with a spherical abdomen. He hadn't given Gackt's fidelity any thought. The younger man was around seemingly all the time, unless he had somewhere to be or something to do... Besides, wasn't he always saying how he loved Hyde?

Hyde lowered his head, and his gaze fell naturally on his stomach, and suddenly it was obvious and even understandable. He was short, fat, and as Tetsu had so delicately brought up, old. Gackt was a self-admitted sex addict with a whole population of people to choose from. He couldn't be expected to wait around for Hyde to drop his bundle and lose all that weight again. Assuming he ever did lose the weight. Some people never did get back into their pre-pregnancy jeans. Just thinking of the pair with the skull studs and the artfully torn thighs made Hyde feel like he was going to cry. He began a determined shuffled towards the hall again.

"Hyde! Where ya' goin'?" Ken asked as he passed, and the guests looked up again to see. Hyde looked around at their curious faces in a panic.

"Oh! I...just have to go... do some, uh... pregnant. Things." He offered as casually as possible.

There was a general nodding of heads and a few mumbles of "Oh, yes, pregnant things." And the men went back to their punch.

Hyde tried not to break into a run as he made it into the relative safety of the hall. He felt a little desperate, a little wild... Something had to be done. Rushing to the winter closet, he dug frantically through the coats until he found the ugly, marshmallow-like thing he often wore on unimportant trips in the cold. Yes, this one. This one might have something. His hands dove intot he pockets.

Yes. _Yes_. In the deepest pocket, amongst a generous portion of lint and the miscellaneous grit that had accumulated in the corner of the seam, was a rather flat and wrinkled cigarette. Hyde eyed it with an expression of awe and disbelief, smiling helplessly as he reverendly brushed fuzz off of it on his way to the bedroom. His Zippo was still in the drawer of the dresser it had been exiled to when it became clear he had no use for it (other than setting himself ablaze and putting an end to things), and he snatched it like a starving man. Tucking these things both into his pockets furtively, he sneaked down the hall and into the guest bedroom. He maneuvered through the several enormous suitcases Gackt had set about the room over the course of his living there, slid out of the door there and on to the balcony.

His hands were shaking in anticipation as he shut the curtain carefully behind himself before closing the door to prevent anyone seeing him. He stepped out to the middle of the balcony, pulling out the twisted cigarette and looking at it lovingly, then began digging to reach the lighter.

The butane was running low, of course. Hyde flicked the flint on it once, twice, nothing. A third time yielded a flame at last, but the faint forerunner of a breeze began to ruffle the stray hairs in Hyde's face, and not wanting to lose what was perhaps the last flame left in the lighter, he quickly moved the hand holding the cigarette to his lips to shield the fire. In the process, his shaking fingers slipped and flicked the crumpled cigarette to the ground.

"Shit."

Hyde closed the Zippo resignedly. He's just have to make it light one more time. He began to bend over to pick up the little stick from the concrete floor of the balcony, but was abruptly and unpleasantly reminded that leaning over was a luxury he could no longer afford. He stared at the cigarette.

"Shit."

Wary of being missed by the guests, Hyde felt panic in his stomach over how long this was taking. He went over to the railing, holding on with one hand to give himself a way back up, but it was too far away and the cigarette remained out of reach.

"Shit, _shit_."

Wandering back over to stand directly over the pathetically crumpled thing, Hyde began to slowly and strategically lower himself in a sort of grand plié to the ground. With every repetition of grunt, shuffle, reach, the cigarette got a little closer. Hyde was nearly sweating with the effort. So close...

Unfortunately, Hyde had never been a dancer, and with a grand finale of wobbling back and forth and flailing his arms, he ended dramatically on his back on the ground. He sighed. His hand groped until it found the cigarette beside his left thigh, and he put it in his mouth unceremoniously.

After seven minutes of trying to get up, Hyde was forced to throw in the towel. He instead reached into his pocket, dug out the Zippo, and managed to get one last light out of it.

The cigarette was excellent, but apparently he needn't have worried about anyone wondering where he was.

It was starting to get dark.

***

"Hyde? What on earth are you doing out here?" Gackt looked around the balcony for some explanation. Hyde scowled at him.

"I don't want to talk to you." It was a bold statement for someone who couldn't really stand up on his own, but Hyde was feeling at the moment that laying out on the balcony until he was eaten by carrion birds was to be preferred over associating with his lover who apparently felt he had no fidelity obligations.

An injured expression laid itself heavily over Gackt's puzzled one. He stepped outside the door and knelt to sit back on his heels. "Was the party not good enough?" He asked rather tremulously. "I don't know the first thing about baby showers, my love, and I feel that even with the patient help of your wife I failed to provide a satisfactory one."

"Don't you call me that," Hyde wished he had another crumpled up cigarette to smoke and considered lighting the filtered tip of the used one.

"Call you what, o patron deity of my world?"

"Any of that. You're full of it. You said yourself you're fucking other people." Hyde felt more exasperated than angry, but it didn't change the fact that Gackt was out sewing his oats while he was stuck on the ground with the crop.

Gackt adopted a tragic expression of long-suffering. "You can't be upset over my... my _problem_ , can you?" He asked breathily. Hyde raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Your problem? Your problem with keeping your hands out of other people's pants?"

" _Hyde!_ " Gackt looked near tears. "I thought you understood this curse, this eternal burning hunger with which I suffer."

"You're a damn skank," Hyde stated calmly. "And I don't want to hear your lies."

"It isn't so simple as that! How dare you accuse me of mere sexual hedonism!" Gackt shook his head from side to side in dramatic frustration. "It is _a curse_ , Hyde! A curse with which I must be burdened until the end of my days, never satisfied, always desiring more, more..." He caught his lip between his teeth, eyes glinting with a slightly different tone. Hyde glanced down.

"Did you just get hard?"

Gackt tried to maintain an aloof and injured expression despite the revealing fit of his tailored pants rapidly draining any dignity he might once have had. "Perhaps I'd better go if this is the mood you're in."

Hyde groaned. "Before you go jerk off, could you help me up?" He reached his arms up towards his lover. Gackt frowned at him, but grabbed hold and tugged Hyde off of the ground.

"You are lucky to have such a chivalrous lover as me, dear Hyde, that helps you to your feet even in the wake of such cruelty from your satin lips. Also, I wasn't going to, as you so crudely worded it, jerk off. Masturbation is a self-important waste of time."

"Spare me. Did you even notice I was missing from the party? Where the hell is everyone?" Hyde dusted the grit off of himself sullenly.

"Of course we missed you, but we were mostly wary to seek you out lest you be engrossed in some mysterious maternal activity." Gackt looked decidedly uncomfortable, and it probably wasn't even just the seams of his leather pants digging into his erection.

Almost touched by Gackt's awkward concern, Hyde shrugged. "I was having a cigarette." He admitted. This confidence was proven to be a bad move when Gackt adopted a horrified expression.

"But-!"

"Look, just one, it was just one, and it's the only one since you guys threw them all away, so don't shit yourself over it."

Gackt looked indignant. "I'm looking out for the child's developmental health, here, and you're accusing me of apoplectic incontinence?" He shook his head disapprovingly. "You are inclined to be so rude to me today. And after I organized you a party and everything."

Hyde smiled despite himself. "I'm sorry. I'm just getting so nervous these days."

Gackt nodded his head sagely. "The climactic day approaches. It is certainly exciting."

Exciting was not the word Hyde would have chosen to describe the impending situation, which seemed like it would perhaps be like passing a nine-pound kidney stone. He wrapped an arm around Gackt's waist and leaned in for a brief cuddle, but was abruptly reminded of Gackt's own swollen condition. Climactic, indeed. Inspired, Hyde snuggled closer. "You know, I'm not so frail that you have to look elsewhere for your fix, you junkie."

Gackt blinked at him pleasantly.

Hyde sighed, but snuggled even closer, letting one hand slide down Gackt's stomach. "I mean, if you're wanting sex, you don't have to look farther than right here."

Gackt's smile became manic for a second, but he quickly smoothed it over exactly as his years in the media had taught him to. "Oh, well. If you like."

Despite the arguable honesty of this agreement, Hyde smiled warmly and tilted up for a kiss. It had been so long. His stomach necessitated leaning forward with his hands on Gackt's shoulders so as to get his face close enough, but as his every action had become equally as awkward, he barely gave it any thought.

The kiss was excellent. As Gackt's hands slid over his back, Hyde pressed in as close as he could and opened his mouth to turn the kiss a little more wet. He popped open the button on the younger singer's pants with familiar, practiced ease, and his fingers found their way beneath the band of Gackt's underwear, where they briefly encountered his notorious organ.

Gackt made an odd, strangled noise and backed away, leaving Hyde literally reeling in surprise and partial loss of balance. They both panted for a moment, Gackt with his eyes closed and his hand over his mouth.

Hyde stared at him. "What? What happened?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Gackt answered, casual voice somewhat choked. "I just thought I was going to be sick for a moment and didn't want to vomit in our current position."

Hyde gawked, sure Gackt couldn't mean what it sounded like. "...Are you sick?"

"Oh, Hyde, I'm sorry!" Gackt fell limp to sit on the convenient edge of the bed. "I just can't! You know I love you, but... When you touched me, I felt so wrong, so far from my centre..."

Hyde threw his arms into the air, where they landed and perched on his shoulders again facing straight up. "Far from your centre?! You told me you blew five guys to get a deal with Nippon Crown!"

Gackt was crying. "Well, I don't see you offering to market my solo work! I can't do this! Please leave me alone!" He fell face-down on the bed and sobbed.

Hyde stared at him in total, mortified shock for nine entire seconds before shouting, "You know, I think _you_ should be the one having a baby, you **BIG PUSSY!** " He stalked out of the room, slamming the door, and stomped down the hall towards his own bedroom. "Goddamn selfish bastard, can't even feel me up a little, not even for me, damn him, thinks he's so special, getting all pukey just because I'm not as cute as I used to be..."

The slamming doors and muttered curses of her husband alerted Megumi to the danger and possible whininess she would have to endure if she stayed, and so she quickly exited the bedroom to sleep on the sofa in the den. The curtain swished as she left, the moon reflecting off the pretty fabric.

Hyde slouched in, grumbling. "And I mean so what, huh? So what if you hold the record for hugest penis? That doesn't mean you get to just strut all over the place and stick it where ever you like!" He shut the bedroom door and change into his pajamas. "I bet you've got a hundred thousand other kids running all over the place, only no one ever roped you into being responsible before! Hell, maybe you're just secretly shelling out child support all over the goddamn place..." If he heard a very dull thud, like a heavy boot on the carpet, he ignored it in favour of continuing his tirade. "Well, I've got a message for you, buddy, you're gonna stay here and you're gonna raise this damn kid, too. Fuck you and your busy schedule. Hey, I hear you behind me, and you're sure as hell right I'm talking about you, you sleazey -- _geck!_ "

The rag over his mouth and nose smelled funny.

***

Once his tears had run dry and he had come to grips with the feeling of Hyde's stubby hand greedily reaching into his pants (although he knew the sensation would be burned into his memory forever), Gackt sat up and collected himself. He did, after all, feel a little bad for breaking down like that in front of Hyde. It wasn't that he found Hyde repulsive as a person, as he did so many other people. After all, Hyde was only temporarily large, and it wasn't really his fault. Many people were fat for their entire lives due to their vile eating habits (that was to say, their habit of eating). Besides, even fat, Hyde still had a lovely face, and a beautifully nymphish smile. He might have been a rather chunky pixie at the moment, but he was a pixie nonetheless, and Gackt realized he had overreacted. And he'd thought he'd forever suppressed his gag reflex. Ah, life was full of surprises.

He reapplied his makeup flawlessly before making his way down the hall and into Hyde and Megumi's bedroom, but the room was dark and clearly uninhabited. Determined to apologize, his search revealed Megumi watching television in the den in her pajamas. He offered her a typical greeting appropriate for such a scenario.

"No, Gackt, I've told you before, I don't think Hyde would approve of us having that sort of relationship." Megumi answered. Gackt shrugged, undaunted, and went on to voice his real question.

"Have you seen Hyde?"

"He went into the bedroom, I think." Megumi answered.

Gackt frowned. "I didn't see him there. The lights were out."

"Well, maybe he went to bed. I think he's still awake, though."

Gackt padded back to the bedroom and peeked inside.

It was dark, but Gackt's sensitive eyes preferred it this way. He glanced around the room, which revealed no Hyde in its recesses, and went over to the bed to see if his lover was already under the covers. The bedclothes, however, were flat and empty. Gackt sighed in delicate irritation and puzzlement.

Until something caught his eye.

As the curtains wafted in the breeze, a streak of moonlight moved fluidly over the head of the bed. There, on the crisp white of the pillowcase, was a peculiar little piece of art. Gackt reached to pick it up and examine it closer, but drew back hurriedly as it pricked his finger. Two blue rose petals, carefully arranged with their bases together to form a little heart and held in this position and to the pillowcase with a long pearl hat pin.

Gackt gasped.

" _Mana!_ "


	6. In Which an Epic Battle is Followed by Shameless Cliches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone needs to answer for their crimes against Gackt's dearest love.

Gackt knew there was absolutely no time.

Megumi, although she was a sweet woman and very understanding, had a certain skepticism toward many of Gackt's hunches which he was suspicious would come into play in this situation as in so many others. But now was not the time to feel bitter or make further attempts to convince her of his subtle and unique Gift. Now was a time for action.

Gackt went into the spare bedroom and donned his most fearsome boots. They had twelve straps with buckles between them and the toes were as long and thin as butter knives.

He threw on his longest, fullest coat and turned the collar upward. It would be cold, where he was going.

He picked up his keys from the end of the kitchen counter on his way out.

As he closed the door, he heard Megumi calling back to him, "Gackt, dear, please don't go outside now that it's dark, you know how the cul-de-sac at the end of our road confuses you."

But Gackt had more than a cul-de-sac to reckon with this evening.

***

The car could only take him so far. When the road had become too narrow, Gackt pulled it as far off as he could manage. He opened the trunk and withdrew what he was looking for, shut it, hit the lock button so that the car beeped, and began to take the steep mountain road by foot.

His keys jingled in his pocket and his sword slapped the back of his thigh as he ran. Neither of these things were metaphors for the incredible size of his penis, which of course went without saying.

***

As the road wore on, it became more and more slender, the sides dropping away steeply and crumbling at the edges. Eventually, it evened out and Gackt could see, outlined against the navy blue sky, a monstrous castle with a crooked spire of a tower. It blacked out the stars and loomed over the cliffside at an angle that had probably made more than one structural engineer scratch the back of his head as he examined the plans. Gackt stared up at it as he paused to catch his breath.

"Mana."

***

An enormous wrought-iron gate stood across the narrow road. Gackt walked carefully up to it. On the other side, a dark figure hobbled up. It tipped up its large top hat and a single, watery eye like a hard-boiled egg examined Gackt's impressive image.

"Password." It croaked, and the word was cut short, as though it had been clipped from a recording of a longer sentence.

Gackt paused thoughtfully. Hopefully, Mana had not changed the password from years passed. Otherwise, Gackt would have to go to all the trouble of killing this gatekeeper and tearing the iron bars from his path with his bare hands. It was hell on his nails and he'd only just had them polished two days before.

"Cupcakes," he said pensively.

The gatekeeper hobbled to the lock and twisted it open with a large key from around his neck.

***

The gravel of the driveway crunched underfoot. The waves crashed like explosions hundreds of feet below. The rush of wind from the cliffsides blew Gackt's hair all askew and into his eyes despite his attempts to hold it down.

It smelled like salt and rot.

Gackt _hated_ salt and rot.

***

It didn't seem very likely that Gackt would achieve success in his endeavor by knocking on the monolithic oak doors and asking if he could have his lover back, please, so he tried pushing on it. Unsurprisingly, it did not open.

Smirking cautiously, Gackt took a step back, rolling his shoulders and stepping his feet in place a moment before turning one shoulder to the door, bracing his hands against one another, and slamming his weight into the barrier. Since the door was not, in fact, locked at all, and as Gackt had simply needed to turn the door handle _simultaneously_ to pushing against it, the door was very much intimidated by this display of violence and threw itself open immediately with a scandalized wooden shriek of 'Heavens to Betsy!'

Gackt therefore entered the room with unintentional fanfare as he stumbled to regain his balance.

The hall was, as expected, dark and freezingly cold. Gackt did not pause to gather his coat more tightly, but strode forward with a _tap, tap, tap_ of imported Italian shoes against the flagstones. He was on a mission, and for once, it had _nothing_ to do with firing some fumbling lighting technician's sorry ass.

Stepping forward seemed to close the darkness behind him like a curtain. Gackt eyed the deep blue surroundings warily as he stepped through an archway into what he remembered the be the main hall.

"Mana!" He called, knowing it would frustrate the other man immensely to have someone shouting so loudly and hoping to draw him out. "I'm here for something that belongs to me!"

" _What?!_ " A voice snapped out of the darkness to Gackt's left, immediately recognizable in its scandalized fury. "You had better not be talking about me, you jackass. If you think I _belong_ to you then we are gonna have a very serious discussion during which I might have to kick your ass!"

"Hyde!" Gackt took a step in the direction of the voice, discarding at once the humorous mental image of Hyde's short, round, poorly-balanced form kicking anything above his shins, but as he did so, ten torches simultaneously burst into blue flames around the room, illuminating a dais with a throne. Upon the throne, naturally, sat the lace-draped, beplatformed figure of Gackt's most regretted of old bandmates. Gackt turned to face him.

 _'Why, Gackt,'_ Mana implied by a raising of one impeccable eyebrow. _'Imagine a visit from you after all this time.'_

"I'm not here to play games, Mana." Gackt warned him very seriously, although he had to admit he was very impressed by how voluminous Mana's hair was at such short notice. "Now let Hyde go and this can end quietly." The road was long, and he'd probably suspected Gackt might come to Hyde's rescue, but it looked like forty-five minutes of repeated spraying and blowdrying at least.

 _'You should know by now, my wayward prodigy, that nothing between us ends quietly.'_ Mana seemed to say. He stood up and Gackt tensed in preparation for... whatever it was that might happen, but Mana simply gestured to the wall at the left. _'Hyde is going to be the model for my newest Moitie line.'_

Frustration burst out of Gackt like a sour note. "I know it was you!" He shouted, pointing an accusatory finger. "You did this to my dearheart! _You_ made him unhappy and uncomfortable and fat and irritable for all these months!"

"What the hell?!" Hyde shouted, but Gackt ignored his screeching outburst as usual.

Mana nodded as if to say, _'Yes, I did this to him. I caused this unholy pregnancy. But can you not see the beauty of it?'_ He held up his hands, imploringly, begging as so many others had done in the past for Gackt to grasp a simple concept. _'This baby will have the talent, the drive, the beauty of_ both _of you, but without your wild, arrogant incapacity to do what I want you to. Stubborn ass.'_ He added mercilessly with a slight twitch of a smirk.

Gackt cocked an eyebrow. "What you don't seem to have realized, ma cherie, is that Hyde is equally as wild and arrogant in his own way!"

"Seriously, are you going to help me, or are you two going to sit down and have margaritas and bitch about man troubles?" Hyde, not at all well-versed in Mana's subtle body language and therefore only privy to one side of the conversation, seemed a little put-out. Gackt glanced at him to express his apologies, but any thoughts that might have accidentally been strolling from one side of his head to the other were knocked squarely out by what he saw.

Hyde was chained to the wall with his arms above his head. While this might have been extremely sexy if left at that, he was most unfortunately clothed in what seemed to be the puffiest of empire-waisted dresses, ribbon-topped knee socks, and a frilled headpiece. Gackt gasped. Mana swelled with satisfaction.

 _'Mata-rori,'_ he explained with a flourished flick of his wrist. _'Maternity lolita. It is dreadfully difficult to design something to cover such an ugly lump, but as usual, I have done it perfectly. Until such time that Hyde is able to deliver to me my perfect vocalist, he will pay his way in modeling.'_

"Hyde will never model for you!" Gackt shouted again, because the acoustics in this hall made everything he said sound excellent, and he was inclined to say them as loudly as possible for this reason.

"What?!" Hyde looked extremely alarmed. "Model?!"

 _'I have ways of controlling even this untamed animal.'_ Mana assured Gackt with a withering look.

"Drugs, I suppose? Some model dear Hyde will be when you've pumped him full of opiates!"

_'It always worked with you.'_

"Oh my god, no one's taking a picture of me like this! I'll chew off both my arms before I let them!!" Hyde was rattling against the wall with such passion that his threat seemed quite believable. As Mana was distracted by ensuring that he wouldn't have a pregnant amputee for a model, Gackt took the opportunity to reach under his coat and draw out the tsuguri he'd sheathed there. The metallic sound drew Mana's attention again immediately.

"Mana," Gackt said quietly. "I don't want to have to do this, but if you do not release my love immediately, things shall have to, as they say in English, Get Ugly." He smirked because _god_ he was so clever and cool that sometimes he wanted to slap _himself_ jealously.

Mana paused thoughtfully. He shrugged stiffly to indicate, _'Well, Gackt, there's no need to get violent, but if that's the way it is...'_ He walked carefully to the wall, drawing a key from the bodice of his dress, and began to unlock Hyde's restraints. Gackt paced over to meet them, sword still lowered cautiously.

As Hyde fell forward out of his shackles (they had been too high on the wall and held him uncomfortably on tip-toe, though this was not the intention of the design), Gackt moved his tsuguri to one hand in order to make a doomed attempt to catch the spherical thing toppling toward him rather than to impale it like a huge, lacy takoyaki, and it was at this moment than Mana drew inexplicably from under his petticoats a chain mace of a size which would have been comedic had it not been crushing the stone floor to chips where it fell.

Gackt did his best to toss Hyde aside, although due to his partner's increased inertia was only partially successful. He held his blade at attention again.

"Oh my god!" Hyde shouted helpfully as he tore the lacy headdress off his head and began ripping furiously at the carefully constructed ringlets that now made up his coife.

Gackt and Mana circled one another slowly. Mana's intense face unmistakably told Gackt, _'I'm not giving up my master plan to a wizened pop idiot. Step down before I'm forced to disembowel you.'_

Gackt ignored as best he could these hurtful threats of bodily injury and elderliness. "You can't beat me, Mana, all of nature is on my side."

Mana came far too close to cracking a smile at the very idea of Gackt and Nature being on the same side. _'I would ask you to explain that claim to me, old friend,'_ his eyes twinkled, as he drew back his arm, the mace swooping audibly through the air in the desolate, voiceless silence. _'But I'm going to have to crush you now.'_

He brought the mace swirling over his shoulder and straight down. Gackt leaped to one side as it shattered the flagstone exactly where he had been standing, the crunching of the rock a percussion to Hyde's falsetto shriek. The thought of what would have become of his boots had he moved only a fraction more slowly was enough to make Gackt shudder. He suppressed this sign of weakness and stood straight again.

"Nature, because you have twisted it to force my Hyde to bear a child!" Gackt proclaimed proudly. Mana swung the mace low from where it was embedded in the floor, but Gackt leaped over the weapon as it passed with relative slowness. "Nature, because I am driven by a force you, with your cold and blackness-" He was cut off as he ducked the enormous, spiked iron ball. It ruffled his hair on its way by and frantically, he smoothed it again. "A force you can never understand. Love!" He finished with victory, swinging his sword forward with precision and speed. Mana blocked it with the thick handle of his own weapon. Taking advantage of their close quarters as their weapons remained crossed, he roughly elbowed Gackt in the solar plexus to drive him a few steps away again.

His withering expression seemed to be repeating in disbelief, _'Love? LOVE? You think you're not going to be crushed to a bloody pulp on my floor, something I've been imagining doing to you in vivid detail for years, because of LOVE?'_ He hoisted the mace and began to swing it over his head, building up speed. Gackt was feeling triumphant.

"Yes! Love! A powerful force! Something which can tie together two people against incredible opposition, such as one party being too short for sex in the shower without risking slipping! Something which can mask the numerous flaws of one's partner and leave them as a radiant sun bursting in one's heart-!"

He was unable to continue due to the mace's chain catching him roughly across the hips, Mana having been too disgusted to control his aim in the least. With a very undignified _*oof!*_ , Gackt pivoted over this painful axis and fell flat on his face on the stone floor, where he seemed to take a luxurious moment to gather himself.

Hyde was in a panic. Sure, he complained about Gackt a lot, and sure, the guy could be the most insensitive douche on the planet, and he had no sense of respect for other people and even less sense of tact or propriety, and maybe he _was_ sleeping with half the music industry, but that didn't mean Hyde wanted him to die a hideous death on the floor of a has-been V.K. drag-queen, pummeled into goo.

Moving as jerkily as a haunted house ride automaton coming to life, Hyde stepped forward with his arms outstretched. There had to be something he could do. Something he could use. There was no sound but Gackt's laboured grunting, but he swore he could _hear Mana laughing_ as the mace rose up and began to swing in a circle, building up force for a finishing blow. In his mind, he saw Gackt's toned stomach crushed flat like steak under a meat tenderizer. Something, something, anything, and his hands felt a smooth, curved surface. An enormous Chinese vase, tucked partially behind a curtain to the side of the dais. It was large and slick, but with both arms, Hyde could just lift it.

He had only a second, or less. The mace was swinging in circles through his path, but it was just like jumprope. Wait until it had passed you, hop right in, haul back and _**SMASH THE FUCKING VASE ON THAT FUCKING CRAZY ARISTOCRAT QUEEN'S HEAD!!**_

Hyde fell hard on his ass with the shock of the vase shattering, but not as hard as Mana, who fell like a velvet-lined sack of rocks. The mace crashed harmlessly into the floor to one side, obliterating a floor stone as big as Hyde's torso, and there was an unidentifiable rushing sound. Gackt gasped in sudden pain, and the torches went out, cloaking the cold room in black again.

There was a strange keening coming from somewhere in the dark, but after a few stricken moments, Hyde realized it was himself as he struggled with increasing panic to get to his feet. Only when two warm hands slipped under his arms and lifted did he manage to come to a stand.

"Come," Gackt's voice commanded, calm and clear. "I'll guide you out."

Hyde didn't question Gackt's sense of direction in the dark, despite the very real possibility that they would end up wandering Mana's abode forever if left to his lover's sense of direction. He was locked down, streamlined for survival, and when someone claimed to know the way out, so help him, he was going to follow them.

Surprisingly, they made their way efficiently through the hall, down the corridor, and out into the relative brightness of the stars on the driveway. Gackt blinked at them as they crunched across the gravel. Perhaps it was simply the moonlight, or Hyde's sheer joy to be alive and no longer confined to such a cold place (seriously, had Mana been running the air conditioner? At this time of night? The man was certifiably insane), but as Gackt rushed them to the gate, nearly carrying Hyde by one arm, he looked oddly focused.

"I'm afraid the car is quite some distance," Gackt said, glancing at Hyde with a very peculiar expression. "Can you make it?"

It was at this point, as Gackt waited for an answer, that Hyde recognized the compressed eyebrows and wide eyes as _concern_.

He stopped dead in his tracks, his heels grinding through several inches of gravel as Gackt resolutely continued to drag him.

"What. Is. Wrong with you." He demanded. Gackt dropped his arm and cocked his head.

"What?"

Hyde pointed, accusatory. "You never ask me if I'm going to make it unless you're talking about one of two things: Getting ready to go to one of your parties, or holding off having an orgasm for more than fifteen minutes. Now I might be confused, but I am pretty sure we're not fucking right now, so I'd just like to say that we are _not_ heading to any ridiculous media whore parties until I get out of this goddamn dress and have a nap!" He crossed his arms.

Gackt was staring at him in shock and sadness. "My love, I know that I have said terrible things to you. But please," He took a step forward, cupping both of Hyde's shoulders in his hands and looking into his eyes. "We must run immediately. I don't know how long Mana will be out. We may have only minutes to reach the car. Once we are there and safely driving away, we can further discuss my failures with regards to you and our relationship."

Hyde stared.

Gackt waited.

The torches on either side of the oak door behind them lit.

Together, they ran.

***

As he attempted to recount the story when they arrived home in the early morning, safely out of the miles of crinoline and faux-satin, wrapped up in a robe of mysterious origin that must have belonged to Gackt, and clutching a mug of tea, Hyde found his darling wife having some difficulty accurately rendering the scene in her mind's eye.

"So, the last thing you remember is talking to Gackt? And the first thing you remember next is Gackt in a dark room with you? And, somehow, you don't think Gackt had anything to do with this?"

But despite these and other frightening holes in Hyde's own understanding of what had happened, only one detail needed immediate answering for him. He glanced over at Gackt, who was silently putting together a plate of leftover food as Hyde had off-handedly mentioned being quite hungry.

Everything about the scene was wrong.

"Gackt," he called, ignoring his wife's prompting as he so often did. "What happened to you?"

The taller man glanced over at him querrilously, pausing from scooping rice into a bowl. His bangs were sticking to his face where steam had risen off the hot food, and he looked not only confused by Hyde's question, but concerned as to what it implied.

"...You're acting weird." Hyde added with a misgiving expression, clutching his mug still tighter.

Gackt put down the spoon with a sigh. "I confess I am not the best person to ask," he said, and although this statement had likely been true of anything Hyde had ever asked him, it had a ring of humility to it that was almost as unsettling as the thoughtful look on his face. "Certainly my own views of what happened are the most clouded and vague. But I have a hypothesis."

Megumi nodded with an impressed expression. Previously, she had only heard Gackt use the word 'hypothesis' to refer to the rash that developed between his legs when he wore synthetic underwear.

Gackt set the bowl in front of Hyde before sitting down at the empty place beside him and staring into the steam. It seemed to be just the screen he needed to project his memories upon. Despite the obviously pregnant nature of the pause, Hyde felt strongly that he, being non-metaphorically pregnant, deserved slightly more respect. He began to wolf down the leftovers with abandon, and felt uncomfortable (and yet, soothed) when Gackt didn't wince, retch, or look away. It was better that way, anyway. A situation of this magnitude would be better handled after a heap of reheated rice and steamed broccoli, rubbery from the microwave.

"I do not know how, but he trapped me. Mana was able to somehow trap me beneath my own stage persona. He must have thought I would be more of a success if there was no way to slip up and reveal my true self, if there was _only_ the persona, but it failed. A stage persona is nothing without the conscious thought of a human behind it. It became a collection of oddities and brash statements, quirks and baseless opinions. And I was _there_ , Hyde."

Suddenly, he reached out across the table and seized Hyde's arm, the action causing Hyde's chopsticks to snap crossed and drop a broccoli florette. He watched its roll slow to a stop just before the apex of the curve of his belly, happy it had stopped before entering a free fall to land between his legs. Happy because he would have eaten it, anyway.

When he glanced up, however, the broccoli was forgotten. Gackt's eyes were intense with a haunted look. "For ten years, Hyde, I could see and hear, but not control. Tortured by the words in my own voice, by the actions I did not cause, by the very thoughts I could not ignore from this foil of myself... Well, no need to explain to you, I'm sure."

His admission of guilt, though so long in coming that it must have been delivered by Pony Express, was lost on Hyde as he considered these facts. With this revelation, his own actions were hardly looking as saintly patient as they once had. Every transparent lie to save his own skin, every time he had deliberately misled Gackt on trivial truths such as whether or not avocado masks would fatten him through osmosis, every time he had taken the side of the crowd and laughed at Gackt's brazenly unfounded statements rather than defended him... They had all seemed like victimless crimes at the time. Most of the time, Gackt had laughed too, although it could be argued that he didn't know why, or was laughing at an unrelated thing he had just seen, like an unstylish ensemble, or a butterfly. When he _was_ offended, he typically forgot in less than fifteen minutes, and so no permanent harm was done. Or so it had seemed.

More humiliating still than the realization that Gackt had heard, seen and understood his actions was the fact that he wasn't accusing Hyde of anything. He obviously thought that unfiltered douchebaggery was simply an unfortunate but inarguable aspect of Hyde's character, not worth even bringing up. Hyde looked away as his insides shifted in shame.

"Hyde?"

He glanced up to see Gackt looking at him with more desperation than ever. It was an expression any magazine photographer would have happily given a testicle to shoot, that members of Dears would savagely claw each other to death to have directed at them. Hyde squirmed again, though not so much from shame, as Gackt held his hand on the table.

"I can't ask you to forget the way I've treated you. I don't know if I can even ask that you forgive me. But please, if you have ever hoped for anything more between us, give me one final chance to prove I can be good to you. Let me prove that I love you more than I've ever been able to show you."

Hyde was so overwhelmed by the situation as a whole that he stared dumbly forward, mind searching for a small portion of something he could grasp and use to formulate a reply. After a few seconds during which Gackt grew more and more charmingly, humbly disappointed in his countenance, Hyde managed to croak out, "...Do you still think I'm fat?" as this seemed to be something of a cornerstone for either a 'yes' or a 'no.'

Gackt moved back as though the question had literally repulsed him. "Listen to me," he said in a very low and serious voice. "I have never thought any such thing. Your condition..." He glanced at Hyde's hemispherical belly, bridging the gap between his chest and the table. "While unexpected and wholly unusual, has never once disgusted me. Quite the opposite."

Hyde burst into the most unattractive tears ever wept. He thought about how disfunctional their relationship had been, and how he was a man who was having some weird occult man baby, and about how his pants didn't fit him anymore, and he bawled until every individual sob created a spit bubble and his nose and eyes ran as if in a race against each other. Megumi took the opportunity to stand up, clear her throat, and give Gackt a bracing pat on the back.

"I've just remembered, I have a program on the DVR I need to watch. I'll be pretty absorbed, so don't expect to see me for at least a couple of hours."

It was a kind gesture. Hyde thought about how accepting Megumi was of his affair, and its awkward and unintended consequences. He thought of her sitting in the den watching TV alone after hearing someone else declare passionate love for her husband. The force of his wailing caused him to start coughing.

Gackt looked alarmed. "What is it, my love?" His eyes were wide and dark brown, and giving him a serious and genuine look that begged for some honesty in return.

"SHE'S SO GOOD TO US!!!" Hyde choked out in terrible agony.

Gackt smiled and looked back in the direction Megumi had disappeared. "She is a wonderful woman. I feel she must have been able to see a sign, to see the real me somewhere under all that foolishness."

"NO," Hyde shook his head vehemently. "SHE THINKS... YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!! ONE TIME, YOU WERE IN THE SHOWER, AND SHE SAT ME DOWN AND TOLD ME I HAD TO BE PREPARED IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY HIT THE FEMORAL ARTERY WHILE YOU WERE SHAVING YOUR CROTCH AND _DIIIIIEEEEED!!!!_ "

Gackt looked rather deflated, but he recovered after a moment. "Then she trusts you very much, to accept that you could see something in me that she could not."

Hyde burst into tears afresh. "I didn't... It's just... You're so good in bed!!!" He sobbed. "I MEAN, YOU ARE SERIOUSLY AMAZING IN THE SACK! I DIDN'T EVEN CARE IF YOU WERE RETARDED!!!" Unable to even use his inside voice, he added with conviction, " **I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON!!!!** " before choking again.

Gackt took advantage of the break in his emotional explosion to hand him a napkin in desperation. "Darling, please, you have bits of broccoli coming out of your nose."

Hyde gulped and wiped his face. "That's the Gackt I know," he managed unevenly. "Grossed out by food and bodily functions." He closed his eyes and tried to dry them with what felt like a grade-ZZZ napkin without causing them to further swell up and render him entirely blind.

"Not at all," Gackt replied. "But it will be much nicer to kiss you this way."

Hyde removed the napkin and looked up just in time for his lips to be caught. He was embarrassed to admit to himself that he was melting. Maybe it was impossible to make up for all the shitty things they had done to each other with one kiss over a bowl of wilty leftovers, but this was certainly coming close.

As they broke apart, felt an odd tension inside himself. He couldn't look away as Gackt stared into his eyes, and if he hadn't been such an emotional wreck, he would have felt ridiculous. Even with his whole brain restored, it seemed like his lover was a total cheeseball.

"I'm willing to forgive your failings if you'll grant me the same."

Hyde smirked a little in an effort to be himself. "Why don't you give me another kiss while I think it over?"

Gackt seemed happy to oblige. Really, really happy. Damn, he was such an excellent kisser. As great as Gackt had been in areas of love before, Hyde was forced to admit that knowing there was something going on in his brain was a bit of a turn-on. Maybe he really was becoming a woman. Then again, after this many months of celibacy, what wasn't arousing to him? He had been disturbed only last week when he was watching a cooking program and the site of stuffing a guinnea hen had become undoubtedly erotic.

As their kiss reached beyond the time limit for sweetness, he struggled to get closer, but the table and his stomach blocked him like the awkward friends who wouldn't get a hint and leave the room. Gackt noticed his wriggling, and his grin split their kiss apart.

"I hope it isn't too forward to suggest we go someplace besides the kitchen."

Hyde's heart was hammering in his ears. He tried to play it cool and casual with his answer of "Oh, god, no," but his explosively loud laughter gave away his desperation. _I'm gonna get some, I'm gonna get some, OH GOD I'M GOING TO FINALLY GET SOME..._

"I couldn't be sure. Only a moment ago, you were crying."

"It's been a hard day! I was chained to a wall, you know!" Hyde felt extremely irritated at being called moody, but sudden anxiety made him forget. "Gacchan, I... I don't know if I can-"

Gackt stood up and waved this worry away the same as he would have dismissed the worries of his stage designers explaining to him the laws of physics. "You don't have to do anything. At the very least, I owe you a few. Not that I've been counting." He smirked, and Hyde felt a flutter in his stomach. When he paused, Gackt leaned down and kissed him again, briefly, then extended a hand to help him up. "Please. Let me make today better for you."

Hyde felt like his vision was going fuzzy as he took the offered hand. It had been so long, in some ways he had resigned himself to never getting fucked again. Like a virgin birth, only backwards, he had thought he was doomed to imacculate post-conception. God, to think of it in as many words made him want to cry with relief. It seemed too good to be true. As he stood up, he considered whether his awkward shape or his newfound respect for his lover as a human being was going to turn out to be the bigger obstacle in grabbing his hair and throat-fucking him into another dimension.

As it turned out, these were simply idle ponderings to which he would never know the answer.

No sooner had Hyde reached a full stand than he immediately crumpled to the floor with a sensation so intense, he couldn't immediately identify it. Feeling wetness between his legs, he thought with alarm, _Oh god, was that an orgasm?_ He couldn't be sure after such an immeasurable time, although he remembered them being more pleasant.

In answer to his question, an urgent telegram suddenly arrived from his brain, which seemed to have found the appropriate reference for the sensation in a rarely-used card catalogue somewhere.

**PAIN.**

**THERE IS PAIN IN YOUR CROTCH.**

**ALERT NEARBY AUTHORITIES POST HASTE.**

Hyde screeched.

Gackt, who in the meantime had knelt down beside him in concern, was blown backwards an entire foot by the incredible force of his lover's agony. "Hyde, what is it?!"

"I'M DYING!!" Hyde ascertained at the approximate volume and pitch of a train whistle.

Gackt looked over Hyde's body for evidence to support this and was met with the unsettling sight of organic ooze on the kitchen floor. He blanched. "I think you're having the baby!"

Hyde wasn't interested in Gackt's assessment of his situation since as far as he knew, Gackt was neither a medical doctor, nor a woman. " **GET MEGUMI!!!** " He roared.

For once, Gackt followed orders without mulling over the details out loud.

***

It seemed to Hyde as if no one was taking him seriously. He laid on the floor for what he assumed was over three hours as Gackt and Megumi rushed about doing a lot of things which were not instantly relieving his pain. Then they demanded of him impossible things such as getting up, going outside, and getting into the car. He was morbidly offended to see that they had taken the time to place towels across the back seat of Gackt's sporty vehicle, as if he were a dog that had been playing in the mud and not a man on the verge of an excruciating demise. To remind them of the urgent nature of this issue, he kept up a constant narrative of caterwauling and keening.

They all drove somewhere as he rolled in torment on the back seat and sent a barrage of mental text messages to God in capital letters, demanding to know what he had done to deserve death by abdominal implosion.

Upon their arrival Somewhere, a lot of other people suddenly showed up and began interrogating him. Thinking it very rude to expect any answers out of him, the man who had just somehow wet his pants out of pure misery, at all when they were the medical professionals, he refused to respect these questions with answers at all and bellowed like a trapped beast in the face of anyone who came near him.

They took him into a bright room and made him lay in a bed that was, for reasons Hyde was horrified to even consider, equipped with big, solid handles on the sides and weird leverage panels for his feet. He glowered at Gackt as this obscene fetish set-up was surely his fault.

Gackt, who had been looking around the room and shifting from one foot to the other in anxiety, turned and met his gaze with a start. "Do you need anything?" He asked lamely.

Hyde thrashed in his confining bed in rage born of terrible physical suffering, throwing a loosely-clenched fist in the direction of his treasonous son-of-a-bitch lover. "GODDAMN IT WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Gackt looked hurt and confused as he dodged the attempted assault. He visibly searched for evidence of his transgressions. "I... what?"

Megumi stepped over and touched his shoulder in an effort to comfort so wildly misplaced that Hyde hollered wordlessly again at the injustice of it. "Don't worry. That's normal. When I was in labor, I promised Hyde I was going to tear out his testicles and put them in his eye sockets. I meant it, too. He's just in pain."

As she gave Hyde a sympathetic look, though, he noticed a gleam of something in her eyes which looked suspiciously like he was getting his comeuppance.

Luckily for them, before Hyde could set them on fire and damn them to burn in Hell forever for their conspiracy to destroy him, Sakamoto-sensei arrived and quickly replaced them at the top of Hyde's list of people to condemn.

He prodded and examined things that were simply not meant to be prodded, nor examined. Hyde cursed him in every color of the rainbow, even inventing new ones and guessing at the ones he had never seen.

Pushing up his glasses, Sakamoto-sensei turned to Gackt and Megumi, confirming what Hyde had long suspected of his willing participation in their treachery. "He's going to need a c-section, and quickly. His hips are too narrow. Nurse, please get him prepped."

A woman stepped over, wheeling an IV alongside the bed, and took ahold of his arm. Hyde struggled for his very life as she attempted to stab him with a needle that he was sure was intended for giving elephants vaccines.

"WHAT IS THAT?!?!" He demanded.

"This is just to help you fall asleep." She assured him, but he was not comforted because sleep was not what he needed.

"DON'T STAB MEEEEEE!!"

Megumi's hand descended upon him and snatched his arm with the force of a crocodile snapping the neck of a baby gazelle. He glowered up at her through the haze of his panic and pain.

"Baby, it will make you stop hurting." She said, slowly and clearly.

Hyde obediently froze, realizing that he was finally getting the attention he needed, and let the enormous needle gouge him. Within moments, he was feeling (although not less angry) immensely tired and heavy. He began to suspect that he had been duped, and out odd habit, rolled his head over to look at Gackt, who was watching him with his arms crossed, still carefully out of range of any flailing limbs.

"You mudder-fuck," Hyde mumbled at him, voice quiet and serene despite his best intentions. " 'fyou lay a han' on my dick while I'm sleep I sweardagaw' I rip yer ass a new ho..."

And then he was blissfully too unconscious to make anymore threats.

***

A voice called to him from somewhere far away, and Hyde thought, _Can't they see I've almost got Hitomi Tanaka's bikini untied?_ But the unrelenting voice sprouted limbs and began shaking him, and Hitomi's bazongas grew fuzzy in the bright white lights of the hospital room, and disappeared.

Hyde glanced around, blinking feebly, and was at last greeted with Megumi's face above his.

"Hey, sweetie," she whispered tenderly, and Hyde wondered why she was looking at him with so much pride when she had obviously just caught him trying to get into ant woman's shirt. "Do you want to see them?"

 _Them???_ Hyde squinted at her, his mind still hung up on AV idol assets. Boobs... milk... babies... oh. He started, suddenly awake. "Them?!"

Inexplicably, Megumi's face split into a gigantic smile. "Yes, baby! You had TWINS!"

Hyde nearly turned around and succumbed to the chemical lethargy, feeling that becoming one of the 0.01% of people to die from anesthesia was a more welcoming option than pursuing the course his life was taking. Morbid curiosity overcame his urge to preserve his sanity, though, and he began struggling to sit up.

Over Megumi's shoulder stood his raunchy lover on the side, a man who could drop panties and boxers alike with the intensity of his gaze, but something was wrong. On his face was a grin that did absolutely nothing for the libido, and in his arms were two bundles, one blue, one pink, both full of pure nonsensical horror.

They must have mistaken his silence for awe, because Gackt burst into giggles. "My darling, may I introduce you to our children?"

In slow motion, he leaned forward. Hyde's thoughts flew at the speed of light to emotionally prepare him in the few seconds left before impact. _It's okay, they're just kids. You already have a son. Now that they're out of you, there's nothing weird about them. Everything's finally back to normal._

Slowly, as if through syrup, he reached out to receive his fate.

Gackt placed them gently in his arms.

He looked down, and Gackt helpfully pulled the soft blankets back from their faces OH GOD THEIR FACES.

From within the blue blanket, a tiny Gackt-face peered out. Turning his head, he saw, to his most ultimate terror, _his own face_ inside the pink blanket.

It opened its tiny mouth.

"Daddy!" it said, in his voice.

Hyde screamed. He screamed from his very soul. He screamed until the surgical wound in his abdomen screamed. The horror-babies were screaming. His head fell back heavily and struck something hard.

***

With a gasp, Hyde opened his eyes. The darkness around him made it a fruitless effort which offered him little explanation.

"KILL THEM WITH FIRE!" He shouted, without even knowing he had begun to speak.

"Kill what?" Asked a familiar voice. Hyde shot a glance in the direction it came from in suspicion.

Gackt was perched on the arm of the sofa with an expression of mixed concern and disapproval. Suddenly, Hyde recognized the dimly lit space as his lover's living room. He was sitting on the sofa, slouched to such a degree that his shoulders were touching the seat. His head was pounding rhythmically.

Seeing no one else to offer an explanation, he turned to Gackt. "What happened to the babies?" He asked, and his voice came out slurred.

Gackt's expression was slowly fading to entirely exasperated. "What babies?"

"The babies! Our babies!!"

Exasperation was replaced immediately with disgust. "Hyde," he began slowly. "I did tell you that I didn't think that was a good idea."

Hyde stared at him, but his mind was beginning to clear slightly. It suggested that he might have left an important clue on the table, where he saw a partially finished drink and a canister of whip cream.

Gackt followed his gaze. "It was bad enough when I thought you were going to spray it right into your mouth, but then when I saw you weren't tipping it down..." He shot Hyde a disappointed look. "Honestly, whatever huffing-inspired nightmare you've obviously just awoken from, I can't help but feel it might be the wake-up call you need."

Hyde was too overwhelmed with relief to listen as Gackt continued with what was clearly a well-rehearsed speech. ("Ever since you split up with Megumi, I feel like you've been rather desperately trying to recapture your youth, and it's not doing you any favors...")

NONE OF IT WAS REAL.

"Oh my god, Gacchan, I just had the most weird-ass experience of my life."

Predictably, Gackt failed to understand the weight of this statement. "It wasn't an experience. I believe when people use the word 'trip,' they mean it in a more metaphorical sense."

"But it wasn't a dream!" Hyde insisted as the details flooded his mind. "It was a place! And my band was there, and You was there, and you were there!"

Gackt fixed him with a withering look.

Hyde decided to focus, to try to draw the moral from the ten-month train wreck he had just imagined himself to endure. "Just... just promise me one thing."

Softening slightly, Gackt gave him a rueful smile. "Anything, my love."

"If... if I ever ask you to... And you can't ask me any questions, but if I tell you I need to... Just shut up and drive me to the women's clinic, all right?"

Gackt stared deeply into his eyes, and seeing the depth of mortal terror contained in his lover's beautiful brown orbs, proved himself to be either the most insane man on the planet, or the most senselessly devoted.

"I promise."

-fin-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming with me on this ridiculous ride that took eight years to complete. GacktxHyde OTP4lyfe!


End file.
